


Reconstruction | Book 1: Awakening

by d8rkmessngr



Series: Reconstruction [1]
Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Depression, Disability, Explicit Language, Friends to Lovers, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Misunderstandings, Pre-Slash, Prostitution, Protectiveness, Secret Identity, Threats of Rape/Non-Con, Trust Issues
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-22
Updated: 2013-12-22
Packaged: 2018-01-05 11:26:00
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 52,578
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1093344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/d8rkmessngr/pseuds/d8rkmessngr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alec has been hiding out from Manticore in Seattle. He steals from the rich; spends it until he's poor. He gets paid for sex. He squats different dumps every week. But he's okay. He's great. But one day, he meets someone while breaking into a certain penthouse. And he's now discovering he's not really that okay after all. Neither is his new friend. But you know what? That's really okay...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Book 1 : Cover

**Author's Note:**

> A Dark Angel Big Bang. An AU glimpse of what could have happened if Max did leave after all in Season 1's "Blah, Blah, Woof, Woof"


	2. Prologue

Penthouse jobs were his favorite jobs.

Alec stood on the edge of the ledge balanced on the balls of his feet. At night, the city looked uniformly decent, as if it had escaped the Pulse, unlike the rest of America. It was only during the day one could see the areas of misery that pockmarked the city. In the eighteen months he's been here, he has yet to see the Seattle some reminisced about. Then again, Pre-Pulse people tend to be sentimental about a lot of useless things.

Fall winds blew around him and ruffled his blond bangs. He swayed unsteadily, but it wasn't enough to stop him from leaning forward to get a better vantage point. His sneakers slipped briefly on the ledge but he caught himself without thinking and readjusted his stance. 

He hummed to himself, idly scratching the newest scab on the base of his skull. When it stopped itching, it would be time for another laser removal of the tat that plagued him. All he would need is cash, lots of cash. And he wasn't in the mood for cruising pervs with a taste for baby-faces this week. 

But which penthouse? Which obscenely rich elite living it up in this post-Pulse world was he going to screw over?

Another stiff breeze cut through him hard enough that it forced his left foot forward dangerously close to the edge. He adjusted again by leaning backwards. He snorted, a little amused by the near miss. He also realized he was shivering. The leather bomber jacket he traded his last bike for had lasted a good three years but was now worn thin through three hundred and sixty five days twenty four seven being used as a bed, pillow and sometimes a winter coat. Its black material cracked and flaked on a few spots; there was a hole over his right elbow. Even Alec’s genetically enhanced genes couldn’t make up for inadequate protection.

The skin in the back of his neck crawled like fire ants inching up. _Itsy bitty spider went up the_ —no, wrong insect. 

He scratched again, hard enough to break skin. He absently wiped the blood off his fingertips onto his jeans as he considered his options. The left unit or the right? 

_Eenie meenie min—Fuck it._

Alec straightened, the wind still whipping around his lean frame. He squared his shoulders, eyed the sparkling lights of Seattle. She looked like a pretty whore in the horizon. He dipped his head and zeroed in on the winner. The window was dark; has been the whole time he was up here. That one, it is then.

With a smile, he jumped.

The lifeline buckled into his harness jerked taut and, for one breathless moment, Alec wondered if the couplings would hold. If not, he hoped Manticore had engineered the X-series impervious from going splat. The passing thought was gone almost soon as he had thought it. While it had lasted longer than most of his concerns usually did, he wasn’t too worried. Manticore had also spliced the fear of heights out of their soldiers.

Alec hung against the side of the building, suspended inches from the window of the penthouse he had chosen as his target. He smirked. His math was never wrong. 

_Itsy bitsy spider_ — _Geez, get off that already._

Alec shifted his weight and lightly pressed his fingers against the cool glass. A red security light blinked almost demonically at him. He scoffed at the simplicity of the system. It wasn't even pressure sensitive. That shit was quickly made a memory with some cleverly inserted wire and a Mylar sheet.

The glass window glided open to the right. Alec stepped gracefully through the new opening. Silently, he looked around the room. Only illuminated by Seattle’s nightlights filtering through the window, it looked like a kickass living room filled with all the best the Post-Pulse world has to offer. Perfect.

For once he was grateful for the enhanced senses Manticore gave him. Although, they probably hadn’t intended for his unnaturally heightened night vision to be used for skulking around, committing petty theft or for spotting horny scumbags lurking in sleazy alleyways. 

Alec smirked to himself. 

Manticore also probably hadn’t planned on him bouncing shortly after the Berrisford mission. He bit back a snicker at the thought of their faces when they had realized their little soldier had gone AWOL but since their pension plan sucked, he was going to milk his skills for everything he could. Manticore would have caught him. Eventually. Maybe. But they were too obsessed chasing his predecessors, who escaped before the Pulse hit, let alone worry about one good looking X-5 gone rogue. 

His target tonight was a fancy dig filled with a mix of wood and glass. All straight lines and geometric right angles, the decor could have classified the place as modern. There were cloudy glass dividers sectioning off the space. Real hardwood floors stretched golden and smooth from beyond the border of the living area. Reddish wood panels were fitted seamless on the walls. The carpeting on the living room felt thick enough to want to curl your toes into and not fear getting tetanus from rusted nails lurking underneath, holding rotting floorboard together. There was a full length couch that got all its legs, with matching armchairs and a fancy glass coffee table. 

Oh yeah, this place reeked money. It was a retort to 'Pulse? What Pulse'? Poor little rich people. Oh no, crisis: where are they going to get their caviar now? 

Alec was going to enjoy stripping this place clean. 

One day, he would have a place like this, Alec promised himself. He eyed the areas partitioned off. He could make out a wall of computers and equipment behind an alcove built with glass dividers. That equipment was probably valuable but too heavy to carry out though. Next time.

The kitchen area to his far right gleamed of brushed chrome but held nothing obvious of value he could fence. Alec doubted a modern building like this would have any copper to salvage either. There might be some fancy eats in that giant fridge to sell though; some non-rancid beef or chicken could get some bucks but he’d have to carry too much to make it worth his while. He wanted something small, concealable and that could fetch a high price.

Back in the living room there was an inactive gas fireplace carved into one wall. He was momentarily happy to spot a flat screen television next to it until he realized it was bolted to the wall. He wasn’t carrying the right tools for that. 

Still nothing portable; nothing cashable on the spot. Damn it.

But then, behind him, a cloud floated away from the moon.

Like a spotlight, the moonlight streamed into a skylight in the front end of the hallway. It reflected off the gold leaf of a very nice vase with an equally nice nude lady curled around it. It sat on top of a mahogany cabinet at the beginning of the hallway that cut down the center into the main area. It seemed to beckon Alec. 

Alec grinned.

_Gotcha._

Toe to heel, Alec crept down the hallway. Even though it was hardwood, he easily crossed it without making a sound. Moving stealthily was another of his enhanced abilities. Yay, Manticore. 

Soon, Alec smoothed a hand possessively over the vase’s porcelain belly before hefting the pottery up one-handed. He didn't know much about art but it felt heavy, old and very expensive. He kissed the top lip of it. He paused when he heard a sound.

"You planning on shooting me with that gun or eating it yourself?" Alec said casually over his shoulder. 

Alec twisted around, the vase balanced on one hand. He looked right at the darkest corner, at the shadow sitting away from the windows in the living area. A thread of irritation knotted in his throat. How the hell did he miss him? He had heard nothing. Who sits in the dark anyway?

"Don't you have something better to do than sit in the dark with a gun?" Alec drawled. 

There was a pause and Alec could almost hear the person thinking.

"I was afraid if I said 'Put your hands up', you might drop the vase," a dry voice answered before the lights came on so suddenly, Alec blinked. "It is very old, you know."

Alec eyed a man in his early thirties seated in what turned out to be a wheelchair. Huh. Didn't expect _that_. 

"Speaking of old," Alec raised his eyebrows at him. "You're not. You don't look like someone who collects art." The guy didn't move at all in the chair, so he wasn't scamming for sympathy checks from the government. Explains the gun, he supposed. Not that it would have done any good against an X-5.

The man shrugged. "You don’t seem like an art aficionado either. Good taste, though. It's a classic baroque representation."

"Perfect then." Alec smiled at the man. He was not hard to look at with his scruffy jawline and full, soft lips. "It's Baroque and so am I."

There was a slight twitch at the corner of that lush mouth. Hm, rich guy might have a sense of humor underneath that gloomy face. Cute face, though. Alec always had a thing for cheekbones.

Alec rested the vase against his hip and cocked an eyebrow at him. 

"You know, for a guy being robbed, you're surprisingly calm," Alec remarked. He scratched the back of his head with his free hand, not really bothered by the Glock pointed at him. With its range, he can duck that easily.

"You know, if you keep scratching like that," the other returned mildly, "that bar code comes back faster."

Alec's hand dropped. "What bar code?" he asked, unconvincingly, his heart pounding hard against his ribs. What the hell? He didn’t know who this guy was or how he knew but he needed to get the man off the subject. 

Sex was always a good distraction. 

"A bar code? Sorry, not for sale unless you want me to be." Alec winked.

"Maybe we can make an arrangement? Maybe a trade?" Alec leered at him. It wouldn't be a hardship this time. The guy was definitely _not_ ugly. "I can make it worth your while."

To Alec's satisfaction, the other man flushed. The guy's eyes shifted away and the ceiling sconce caught a bit of color. Brown. No, green. There were flecks of gold in it. A little voice in Alec's head wondered whether those eyes would change color if he ran his hands through those thick messy spikes of brown hair or if he bites that lower lip until it glistened. 

For once, Alec ignored his inner voice that begged him to find out. 

"That piece is only valuable if you have the full set," the man said as he glanced down at his gun. A shadow flitted across his face before he set the safety back on and placed the gun on his lap. He reached back with nicely developed arms and gripped the steering rail on the sides so the chair silently rolled forward towards a doorway by the flat screen. "No point stealing just that one."

"So I'll get the other piece," Alec called out cheerfully, "From your bedroom."

The wheelchair halted. The man didn't turn around but the _click_ of the safety turning off was loud and clear.

"You can try." The man patted his gun like a dog.

Alec scoffed. "Like you would shoot me with that thing." Even if the guy did, Alec could disarm him before the second shot.

"No, I wouldn't shoot you. Wouldn't do any good, would it?"

Alec blinked. Huh? "What the hell are yo—"

"Close the window when you're done," the man said, almost absently. "It gets cold in here." With that, he entered the bedroom and shut the door. A lock sliding into place ended their stimulating conversation.

Alec stared at the closed door. He considered the vase in his hand and sighed. Yeah, he could see how it might be a set. Naked lady porn works best in pairs.

He sat the vase quietly back onto the cabinet. Alec checked the furniture and contemplated the brass hinges and handles. Nah. Not enough to be worth stripping. 

Alec ruefully rubbed a palm over the golden lady's porcelain derriere.

"Next time," Alec promised. He looked over at that door again, his brow knitted. It stayed resolutely locked but he could hear the man inside, typing away on what must be a laptop. Alec rolled his eyes. _Fine, smartass._ There was a collection of titanium watches he could lift from the ninth floor instead. When he first did recon of the building, he remembered catching through a window one of the tenants slipping one on from a box that was marked 'Evidence' before stuffing the load into a safe. Yea, one of Seattle's finest probably helping himself again. 

He'd get the vases next time. Both of them.

Even though he wore gloves, Alec gave the vase a careful wipe with the microfiber cloth he carried. He wasn't worried about prints, but he had kissed the piece and Manticore had his DNA listed in their little black book since they created him. He wasn't taking chances that this guy didn’t have access to that database since he seemed aware of the existence of Transgenics. It wasn't something one could look up in the library.

A breeze blew in and Alec paused. There was a vague recollection of a fleece blanket tucked around the man's legs. From the outline of their form, Alec knew they weren't wasted with atrophy. They appeared to be well muscled. Whatever happened must have been recent then, boo hoo. But Alec didn’t doubt that the wheelchair guy probably got cold easily. Before he questioned himself why, Alec silently trotted over to the window, shut it and then, with a scoff, reset the useless alarm. He lazily saluted towards the bedroom. There, he's done his good deed for the year.

Alec arched an eyebrow at the door. He could still hear typing. Maybe the guy was some kinky ass porn writer with a pseudo name like Heather Passions or something. He chuckled to himself. He sort of liked that idea. The guy spoke with a hoarse timbre that teased his ears with a surprisingly pleasant rumble. 

"See ya later, Heather," Alec whispered to his reluctant host and headed for the front door. There was a safe full of expensive watches waiting for him three floors below. Too bad he couldn't use the windows; the place faced a busier street. Hell, it's been a while since he did a B and E through the front door anyway. _Mustn't let yourself get rusty, 494._

As he slipped out and headed towards the elevators, Alec wondered why the guy hadn’t seemed surprised at either the break-in or Alec. 

The man acted like this has all happened before.


	3. First Impressions (Again)

The watches bought him a couple of hot meals, a few weeks of ignoring speculative looks from potential johns and a new jacket. Sort of.

If he didn't question the dry dark stain that clung stubbornly to the tan leather just above the sternum, or the rent by the left elbow, or the lingering sour taint of regurgitated food dug deep within the fleshy leather, the lined bomber jacket was a welcomed addition. 

Alec zipped up the jacket all the way up to his throat and relished the main reason why he swapped out his old jacket: high collars. He flipped it up over and around his neck and let it settle against his skin. It was rough as a scour pad on him. The collar was matted with who the hell knows what, clumpy and gravelly, scraping against his scab whenever he moved. 

It felt great.

Still, those vases would have been nice though.

\---

Alec questioned why he came back to the same building weeks later. Why was he perched back on the same roof, staring at the same boring skyline when he'd cased six other ripe buildings? He said he was going back to get those vases, didn't he? And despite everything he might have said and done, the one person he was determined never to break a promise to would be himself. 

The lights in the penthouse were dark. Then again, as he was proven back then, wheelchair guy liked sitting in the dark fondling guns. He wondered what else the man liked to fondle. A smirk crossed his face at the thought. Maybe Heather was in his bedroom writing porn? Maybe he'll want to do some 'research' with Alec? Alec shook his head to refocus on the mission at hand. 

This time, he didn’t need to prepare. He simply leaned further towards the edge and rolled out into the drop.

His SO at Manticore would have frowned at the way Alec let the rope jerk him to a halt at the exact level he wanted. They would have drilled into him the reasons why letting only a triple strand nylon cord vibrate at a pressure of 140 pounds per second was unadvised, unpredictable and just not the proper Manticore way.

Which was why he did it. 

Swaying on just one line of rope without backup rigging several stories above Seattle gave Alec something nothing else gave him: a sense of nonexistence. Since no one ever looks up and no one bothers to look down, it became as though Alec was invisible as he hung on a rope barely as thick as his finger. 

Alec laced his fingers behind his head and swung lazily from one window to the next enjoying the tranquility of the moment as the wind slowly rocked him. 

He stilled himself when he noticed someone had left a window wide open; a window he had been through before so it was not a coincidence.

Alec twisted, a languid midair somersault, until his stomach was to the pavement, his back towards the open sky. He maneuvered himself until he reached the opened window and pulled himself inside. The alarm's red light was off, deactivated. Alec unclipped his harness and landed neatly on the balls of his feet. 

Again, the room had been left dark. The fireplace was still this gaping hole of cold ash and dust. The flat screen was still this matted panel of nothing hanging on the wall. 

And down at the end of the hallway, was the vase.

This time it wasn’t alone though. Its companion piece sat next to it.

Alec stayed where he was and focused on the cabinet that held the set. It stood on one end of the hallway where it intersected with another. The pair glowed almost supernaturally white, the golden feminine bodies with their yellow gleaming breasts writhed around their pottery side by side, like some hot, precious metal lesbian orgy.

Oh yeah, Heather? He was _definitely_ a porn writer.

Reminding himself that this could be a trap, Alec checked the room again looking for his obviously less reluctant host but he saw no wheelchair or sulking figures in the shadows lying in wait. He cocked his head. There were no tell-tale clicking sounds of a keyboard either. 

That other door that had tempted Alec last time was opened a crack.

Alec gave the vases a glance then looked back at the door. He set his jaw and crept towards the other room. He pressed himself against the wall. He slid a palm across the door and nudged it back a little more.

Sure enough, it was a bedroom like he originally thought. Half the size of the living room, it was carpeted in that deep blue fiber that gave him a sensation of buoyancy whenever he stepped onto it. 

On the bed that was the same size of the last place Alec had squatted in, Heather was sprawled on one side of it dressed in loose fitting faded gray sweats. A laptop sat on the other half of the bed, angled towards the sleeping man. His top was bunched up, revealing glimpses of a well-defined flat stomach. Made sense; the guy probably worked on his upper body strength. His head was turned towards Alec, wisps of cool vapor escaping as the man slept, his lips parted as if he fell asleep mid-sentence, his glasses askew on his face. Alec wondered if the room was too cold for Heather. Alec tore his eyes away when he realized he was staring too long.

Standing by the doorway, unnoticed, felt uncomfortably familiar. The sensation of a door flat and flimsy against his back as he observed his target was something his body recognized from his many missions even if his mind refused to acknowledge that history. Alec's stomach churned when he could feel his breath slowing to deep, measured breaths on its own accord. He rose to balance on the balls of his feet, poised for flight. He curled a hand, nails digging deep into his palm before forcing himself to ease back down. 

This wasn’t a Manticore mission. 

_Stand down 494. Do not engage._

Alec studied the dark lashes that curtained the smudges under the eyes. The stubble went up in an arc that followed the structure of his cheekbones. It set the whole face in shadow. It also went down to a pale throat.

The stubble fascinated him. Facial hair was inconvenient for a soldier. It got in the way of camouflage paint, it was too physically distinctive, and it could create a distraction. Somehow, in all their DNA cooking, facial hair of any kind was kicked out of X-494's recipe.

Alec smoothed a hand over his chin and wondered what it would feel like cupping such a rough jaw. He'd always made a point to avoid kissing the mouth or touching the face of his clients. He had no interest in remembering their faces, pretty much content to forget them the moment they pay. He always hoped they had forgotten him as well. 

But now, his fingertips prickled at the thought of skimming such a face, a face that would have been deemed strategically inappropriate. 

Alec shook his head again, more violently this time. 

On the bed, Heather's’ eyes flew open and suddenly Alec found a gun pointed at his face.

"Hey," Alec drawled. He crossed his arms and leaned nonchalantly against the door. "Said I would be back to grab that piece from the bedroom."

His keen eyesight picked out the initial squint before the shoulders relax when Alec's voice registered. Alec blinked. That's a reaction he never gotten before. 

Heather propped his upper body up on his elbows before he dragged and pushed himself up into sitting against his headboard. "Which is why," the man rasped, "I moved it out into the living room."

Alec's eyebrow rose in response. "You make it a habit of making it easier to get robbed?" 

When Alec didn’t get an answer, he nodded back towards the open window behind him. "Thought you said it gets cold out there."

"That's why I'm in here." Heather fidgeted a bit and pulled up enough to free the blanket caught under his bare feet. With a grunt, he pulled on it and the corner flipped over exposing his bony ankles. Alec thought they looked oddly sexy.

"What should I think of you sleeping in here with a gun under your pillow and a naked lady vase in your room?" Alec waggled his eyebrows.

"Nothing. I rarely sleep these days." With a push to set his wired thin frames higher on his nose, Heather lowered his gun and retrieved his laptop. He kept the gun close; so the guy's not completely stupid.

"Seems like a waste of a perfectly good bed," Alec teased him. "I can think of better uses for it." More fun, too.

Heather ignored him and began typing, almost furiously, on the laptop.

"I'm here to get those vases," Alec informed him, trying to get the guy's attention because seriously? Very rude.

"Thanks for the warning," the other replied with a sarcastic lilt. A swirl of green and brown peered at him over the top of his glasses. "Guess you didn't get a good price for Mr. Carter's watches?"

"What watches?" Alec grinned. "Think I'll get a better price for your vases?"

"Any price is a good price for those hideous things," Heather muttered, darkly.

Alec frowned. "Then why did you buy them?"

"I didn't. They were a gift." The typing continued viciously. The laptop bounced hard on the guy's thighs. He didn't seem to notice.

Alec smirked. "From a friend or from an enemy?"

"Worse." Nothing more was offered.

Alec scowled. _Cryptic much?_ Heather was glued to his stupid laptop. His spectacles reflected the lights from the computer screen, changing rapidly. The other guy blinked at it with red-rimmed eyes making Alec suspect the man often spent long hours in front of a glaring screen.

"I'm gonna take them," Alec announced, louder.

"I heard you the first time. I can't walk but I can hear." The guy didn’t even look up.

Reminded of the man’s handicap, Alec glanced over to the wheelchair parked at the foot of the bed. His eyes drifted to the bed and the barely covered feet. The ankles still shown under the blanket but Heather didn't reach down to fix it. Alec thought they looked cold. 

Alec cleared his throat. "So...I'm taking them, now."

Hazel eyes narrowed but at the screen, not at Alec.

"Going to take them, going to sell them," Alec egged him on.

"That would be the point."

Alec glowered at Heather. He wasn't sure if the was the deadpan responses or the fact the man didn't even look at him bothered him more. "What the hell is wrong with you?" Alec asked, surprised at the irritation in his own voice.

The typing stopped. Eyes slid to the side, staring blankly at nothing in particular. "Nothing." The eyes snapped forward and the typing renewed, faster than before.

Alec shook his head and rolled his eyes. Rich people and their dramas. "Anything else I should lift off you?" he asked, sarcastically.

"Why should I do all the work?" Heather glanced up, unsmiling. "Just take them. I don't care." He waved his hand and then dropped his gaze back to the screen.

Alec stared at the top of the Heathers' lowered head. "You're weird," he observed.

Flat eyes flicked up at him. "Close the door?"

"Weird," Alec mumbled again. He backtracked and did as requested. He stood there, listening through the shut door as the typing went on for a long while before there was a brief pause followed by a weary sigh. Alec wondered what the hell Heather's issues were. 

After a beat, the typing started again like it had never stopped.

Alec stood there a little longer, listening to the keystrokes fill the room like a living thing. The clicking and clacking felt like someone was tap dancing up and down his spine. The rhythm held him in an almost hypnotic state.

His stomach suddenly gurgled, startling him out of his reverie. Alec rested a hand on his stomach and wondered if there was enough money left rolled up in his boots for a sandwich and a very tall glass of milk. 

Giving the door a parting glance, Alec reattached his line and eased his way out through the window again. He slid the window shut after wiping it clean before he remembered it had already been open in the first place. He gave the bedroom door a puzzled frown through the window before walking up the building wall back onto the roof to retrieve the rest of his gear.

It was on the way down when Alec realized he'd forgotten to take the vases. 

\---

Usually, there were two kinds of days here in the wonderful land of Seattle: rainy and going-to-be-rainy. 

Alec didn't do wet. Hell, he didn't do humidity. It didn't matter if enhancements and a multimillion dollar genetic soup made him more tolerant to extreme temperatures; he just didn't like the slimy feeling rain and mist left on his skin. 

So when Seattle decided to screw its ecological balance and throw some snow into the mix, Alec had enough. He called it a day at 1400 hours and checked back into what the locals not-so-affectionately called The Hotel Cesspit.

The unit he'd been claiming for the past three weeks was isolated from the cluster of squatters at the opposite end of the hallway but with Alec’s enhanced senses, it was still hard to sleep. The stink and the noise filled his nose and ears. The snow had made it worse by forcing everyone indoors including his closest neighbor; a mother with her two brats living in a hole on his side of the hallway. She had to cut her day short of selling salvaged metals. A shorter work day meant less food. Alec spent the evening trying not to listen to the kids whine about having one less bruised apple to eat.

Alec rubbed his fingers together as he sat propped against his backpack. His fingers didn't tingle with the cold but he kept his leather gloves on anyway. It was a habit to make sure he didn't leave anything behind: no prints, no fibers, no forensic evidence to tie to any of his aliases.

Legs crossed, Alec contemplated his right boot tapping to a beat he thinks he's heard before but can't quite figure out from where. 

The last two watches had been hocked. They were enough to replace his boots, buy a couple of boxes of condoms, and put money into his dermal scrubbing fund. The tattoo guy thought Alec had some kink about scouring the back of his neck. He could still feel the potbelly ink artist who had more hair on his back than on his head, leering as he took his five thousand and picked at the scabs that never completely healed yet. Maybe it was time to find a new removal expert. That man gave him the creeps.

He was broken from his thoughts when one of the kids wailed. Something about being thirsty. The room suddenly felt too claustrophobic. Suddenly, his crappy room was filled with racks. The air grew stale and the phantom memory of environmental controls hummed noisily in his ear. Alec grimaced. He needed to get out. 

He jumped to his feet, scooping up his backpack at the same time. He zipped up his jacket, all the way to his chin. He still shivered though; it felt like his breath's condensation has crawled down his back.

Without a backward glance, Alec left the place without any idea of where he wanted to go. He had no fear of losing the unit. A couple of fistfights last month pretty much guaranteed it would still be if, and when, he chose to come back.

\---

Balancing on a ledge twenty stories high probably wasn't the smartest thing to do during a snowstorm. 

Alec paced the narrow ledge that barely fit the width of his boot. He stuck out his arms as he slid sideways along the ledge with all the grace of a gymnast, probably because he was some freakish distant relative to one. 

Wanting to feel human, Alec pretended to flail and planted one foot closer to the edge, but his enhanced reflexes adjusted his muscles and tightened his tendons. He was balanced nice and steady before he could even think of the word 'Fuck'. 

_Let's hear it for DNA._

Alec stopped in his tracks and leaned over on his toes to gaze below. He wondered what it must be like to experience vertigo. The only time he had experienced it, it had been quickly drilled out of him before he was old enough to recognize the sensation for what it was.

There was a weird orange glow highlighting the snow as it drifted past windows below him. Judging by the rate of fall, it was two levels down. Heather again. 

Why did he return to this building? There were, after all, plenty of other marks elsewhere begging to be ripped off. Equal opportunity and all that shit. He didn't want the rich thinking he was neglecting one of them. 

Alec's brow knitted. He craned his neck and watched more clumps of white crystals glide down, flittering helplessly in the wind, shifting to a golden glow as they reached Heather's floor before paling back to white as they sank to the ground. 

It was an odd mesmerizing light show. It captured Alec’s attention long enough he actually started to feel the cold.

Making a face, Alec pulled away from the ledge. This was a waste of his time. Two steps away though, Alec stopped. He went back and peered over the edge again. 

The snow hung suspended in front of the window, it flared gold before continuing on its way.

 _What is that?_ Alec screwed up his face. He pursed his mouth, thinking.

_Aw, screw it._

Muttering to himself, Alec neatly stepped off the ledge. 

The rope cinched and caught him at exactly twenty eight point five feet again. Alec hung there, spread-eagled, belly down, blinking at the window left open, wide enough that snow was getting sucked into the apartment. Alec followed, easily twisting until he dropped through the window and straightened out from a tuck and roll that took him to the center of the living room.

Alec idly scratched the collar over his neck when he realized he was surreptitiously observed coming in. 

"You know," Alec remarked, "that window sort of cancels out that fire. What is it with you and windows?"

The flames from the fireplace did interesting things to Heather’s side profile. For one, it added a flush on his skin that had Alec contemplating if that blush would go all the way down. The amber flickers caught the gold flecks in Heather's eyes and made them dance. 

Alec's breath caught. When the guy turned completely around towards Alec, he felt rooted on the spot.

 _What the hell?_ Alec tensed and dragged his gaze to a spot above the guy's head.

"Thought you might be back for those vases."

Alec shrugged nonchalantly. He stared hard at the television panel. It was a good piece. Maybe he should just grab that; it's not like Heather could (or for some reason, _would_ ) stop him.

"Can you close the window?" Heather asked quietly before he turned back to the laptop he had balanced on his lap. "It's snowing out."

"Don't blame that one on me." Alec rolled his eyes but did just that after undoing his lines. Might as well be polite. The guy was letting him steal his stuff, after all. "I can do a lot of things but controlling the weather isn’t one of them." He cocked his head. "Don't you ever sleep?"

"I could ask you the same thing."

Alec grunted. "I'm working."

"Oh?" Hazel eyes stayed glued to the laptop, a hand gestured vaguely towards his living room and the hallway. “You might consider putting them into your pack this time before you leave.”

"Don't tell me how to do my job," Alec groused. He scanned the room, noted everything was still where they been before. He went over and studied the fireplace. 

"Cold?" Heather murmured as he typed.

"The cold doesn't bother me," Alec shrugged but he sat down cross-legged on the carpet. He found himself blinking at bare toes peeking out under the navy fleece blanket. He found himself once again wanting to see more. Maybe he was developing a foot fetish.

"That's right, I forgot." The man paused and picked up a glass from the end table next to him.

Alec glowered at him out of the corner of his eye but the other man didn't react. Alec watched as the man sipped his wine from the half empty wineglass. Alec liked watching the red liquid slide between the full lips. He found himself watching the guy’s Adam Apple as he swallowed each sip.

Geez, wine, a fire, middle of the night...

"You're watching porn, aren't you?" Alec asked with a teasing smirk. Heather looked up and Alec watched him blush when he realized Alec had been staring. 

"Hey, I get it," Alec continued, "but why live it vicariously? You can get the real thing. Looks like you can afford it." Alec leered at Heather suggestively.

Heather's initial startled expression faded and the hazel eyes dulled to that flat glance Alec was starting to find annoying. They slid back to the laptop and the typing resumed.

Alec grunted. He turned towards the fire instead and leaned in closer to feel the heat dry up the damp off his skin.

"Why didn't you take the vases last time?" Heather asked.

Alec leaned back; the fire's heat was warming his face too fast and lulled him into being too relaxed. "Huh?" 

"The Baroque study pieces? You didn't take them."

"Lost my buyer," Alec lied. He shrugged and tried not to poke at the squirming sensation in his gut over it. He couldn't figure out why he didn’t either but didn't want to waste time trying to figure it out. "There's no market for pornographic lesbian art." 

"Really?" 

Alec wanted to smack that laptop away and see if that shocked Heather at all. He really wanted to see the other lose his composure. Alec's mouth quirked up at the thought and he tilted his eyes towards him. 

"Now, if it were two naked _guys_ on the vases, there may be a buyer." This time the suggestive hint wasn’t subtle at all.

Heather blinked at Alec before his gaze dropped back to the computer. Alec swore he saw a slight blush bloom on the guy's face. 

Alec's mouth stretched. There were _many_ fun ways he could think of to make Heather look like that again. His smirk broadened when he noticed Heathers' shoulders tensing under Alec's unabashed scrutiny. 

"Seriously, you're watching porn, aren't you?" Alec prodded. He spied the wine bottle by the wheelchair and swiped it. He gripped it by the neck and took a swig. Three gulps and it was empty. When he lowered the bottle, he caught the other looking at him with a concerned expression.

"Don't worry," Alec reassured him. "This is like grape juice. I don't get drunk easily."

"No, I suppose with your higher metabolism—"

The wine bottle rolled away. The laptop snapped shut when it fell off Heathers' lap. 

The wheelchair squeaked when its brakes released after Alec leapt up and shoved his forearm under Heather's throat. The momentum sent them both crashing hard into the wall behind them. 

"Okay," Alec ground out. His chest heaved. There was a buzzing in his ears he wasn't sure if he should give in to or ignore. 

"What the hell is this? What is it you know?" Alec snarled. He pressed his arm higher, pressing Heathers' head further back. He leaned down into the man's space. "The bar code? That shit about the cold? My metabolism? Who are you?"

Heather's pulse beat quickly against his forearm; his strangled breath hot against his skin. But the man’s eyes held no fear. He gazed calmly at Alec.

Alec finally realized he could feel that stubble he had wondered about against his arm. It was coarse, sparse, and sharp like tiny needles pressing into his skin. He could also feel the angular jaw underneath; it was warm, oddly soft under the chin. Alec leaned into his hold and Heather's neck tensed, muscles corded to resist and yet...

He felt very fragile.

Against all his training, Alec pulled away.

Heather gingerly rubbed his throat. When he coughed, there was a strange pang in Alec's chest.

"I..." Another cough. "I know about Manticore. I…once...a friend I knew...Ma—ah, like you…from there..." The man shrugged. 

Alec set his mouth before he could grimace at the crackling quality of the other's voice. "What? You have a thing for military project freaks?"

"You found _me_ , remember? And you're not a freak."

Alec scoffed. Heather sat there massaging his throat.

"So what?" Alec set his hands on both sides of the chair and leaned in. "You go around collecting names of genetically empowered Manticore alumni for kicks? What is it you want from us?"

The expression that met his was weary. Heather didn't look away; he didn't blink either.

"I don’t want anything. I don’t even know your name."

"And you won't ever because I'm not sharing," Alec snapped. This was a mistake. He stood up, pushing off from the armrests. The wheelchair rolled back and bumped the wall and rolled forward again. The man didn’t try to stop it. 

"Fine." Heather said once the chair stopped. He wheeled over and reached down for his dropped laptop. "I don't want to know." He didn't look at Alec again. He settled the laptop back into his lap.

When the typing started up again, Alec growled low under his breath.

"I could kick your ass for being a nosy dick," he spat.

"Yes," Heather said distractedly, "you could."

"I could break your neck, hock all your stuff," Alec snapped.

"You could do that, too. Probably get a good amount," the other tonelessly agreed.

"Who the hell are you?" Alec exploded.

The typing paused. Hazel eyes looked blankly at the fire. 

The man's eyes lowered. 

"No one. I'm not a threat to you," Heather murmured. A shadow flitted across his face. Then, with a shrug and a turn of the wheelchair to face away from Alec, the man went back to typing as if he had never spoken.

Alec glared at the back of Heather's head. He flexed his hands, trying to control his anger. There was a ringing in his ears that ordered him to reach out, wrap his arm around that vulnerable, exposed throat and squeeze. One good twist, a snap between C3 and C4 and the threat would be eliminated. 

Instead, Alec gripped the back of the wheelchair and with a hard jerk, yanked it around. Heather bucked, one hand snapping to grab an armrest to keep his balance.

The wide eyes that stared up at him should have given Alec some dark satisfaction. Instead, Alec recoiled. Then he lashed out a hand, a fist really, and ripped the blanket off the man’s lap. The suddenly exposed sweatpants covered limbs looked easily breakable.

Alec stood there, chest heaving. He squeezed the blanket in his grasp, feeling frustrated at his inability to react the way he should. 

"This thing," he growled angrily, "is flammable. You shouldn't sit too close to that fire with it." It would serve the guy right if he caught fire like a funeral pyre. Alec threw it across the room and ignored the shocked eyes that watched him, clearly surprised at Alec’s unexpected actions. 

Alec spun around on his heels to head out the front door because it wouldn't feel as satisfying to slam down a window. 

Something caught Alec's eye and he detoured to the kitchen first. 

"And I'm taking your fucking apples!" Alec grabbed four of the shiny red fruits from a fancy bowl that could have gotten him a new retro-blade. As he stormed off, he stuffed the fruit into his pockets and didn’t wonder why he had left a perfectly valuable, and easy to fence, piece of china behind. 

As Alec pounded up the stairs to retrieve his pack from the roof, he viciously squashed down the memory of the expression on Heathers' face when Alec had lashed out. He didn't know why it bothered him to remember that the guy didn't even flinch. He didn't know why the other didn't seem to care; not anymore at least.

For some reason, Alec hated to think of what that reason could be.

\---

Why the hell was he here?

Alec glowered at the drop below. If he focused, he could probably see the pavement with his enhanced vision. All he could see right now, though, was his feet swinging idly over the edge of the building he was perched on.

Two weeks had gone by in a blur in a cloud of red. Alec had been too pissed to sleep most nights. He kept jolting awake, thinking he heard hoverdrones. His paranoia made him hopscotch between several hovels, sometimes up to three a night but no matter how many times he moved, he kept thinking he could still hear them whirring too close behind him. So he had decided to use his nights more productively. He stole and he stole a lot.

The other thing on his mind was Eyes Only. Last week, the nosey guy said to Seattle PD "Shame on you" for failing to protect some guy named Bruno before he could testify against his own boss. Alec wasn't sure why it was an issue; Eyes Only did another cable hack the next day with proof on the murder. Mean, nasty boss got arrested anyway. Plus, Alec _acquired_ some very nice things out of that house before the police cleaned it out.

Later that week, Alec had decided to blow some of that money on dinner in a place with real tables and a working television, something he rarely did. And of course the meal had been interrupted by that crackpot Eyes Only. Again. The guy cut into a bad Chinese remake of Law and Order to talk about Seth Mathers and his habit of buying and selling little blond boys and exporting them to Asia.

Alec found it oddly satisfying to break into that house.

Too bad Seattle's finest had already 'confiscated' most of his stuff based on the Eyes Only report. 'Evidence gathering' was the official term. Yeah, right. But they hadn’t found everything. Alec discovered some nice elicit baggies of pills and krugerrands stashed behind the emptied-out wall safes the police had missed. The Mather bastard probably figured he would retrieve them once the judge he bribed set him out on bail.

Thinking about Eyes Only made Alec wonder what had gotten into the un-caped crusader. For several months, he’d been popping up once, sometimes twice, a week on the broadcasts to expose some nefarious deed. But the last week he’d been truly on a mission. He had stepped up his broadcasts: a black marketer, a banker doubling as a pimp on his days off, a crooked cop, a pharmacist diluting his meds and others all in a matter of days. Then one morning, he delivered a list of one scumbag after the other as if he were shopping. 

Alec had hit each house of those named and scraped out whatever was missed in the initial 'shit-let's-get-out-of-the-country' grab that usually followed an ‘Eyes-Only’ ‘outing’. There had been some satisfaction in the actions, but it felt too much like picking on a carcass, digging for scraps of food. If there was one thing Alec refused to do, it was stealing food. It made him feel like a bottom-feeder. 

Even with the slim pickings, he still made enough for two trips to the tattoo guy, buy spare parts for a motorcycle he found and still kept enough to keep him from needing to make extra cash in Alley A, Alley B and Alley Hepatitis C for the next few months. 

Still, if only he could have hit those places a day, no, an hour sooner, his payload would have been better. Despite all of Manticore's slicing and dicing, the one thing they couldn't give an X-494 was the ability to tell the future. His 'reeducation' in Psy-Ops didn't give him precognition; there’s no way to read Eyes Only’s mind, even if he knew who the man was, which he didn’t. 

As Alec sat there on the rooftop, glaring down at his boots, he absently toyed with one of the coins he had yet to liquidate. Alec lazily rolled the shiny krugerrand across his knuckles, smiling as it caught the murky city lights that pierced through the night sky. 

The coin stuttered between his third and fourth knuckle and he almost dropped it. He looked at his hands. Scraped knuckles didn't make for smooth travels. Next time, he'd think to use something else to hit a Steelhead's jaw because, shit, hitting that jaw actually hurt. He didn’t remember why he struck the asshole in the first place although he would have done it anyway on general principle because anyone who would deliberately implant enhancements into their bodies was asking for it. And while the jaw wasn't plated as some other Steelheads had been that Alec had encountered, it had been broad, densely structured and square. When Alec had swung and popped him, he had felt smooth, beardless skin, yet it had been clammy and textured like an animal's hide. Unlike...

Alec set his mouth. He glanced past his boots at the Seattle skyline. He really shouldn't be sticking around Seattle; staying in one spot wasn't strategically wise. His legs kicked out, heels thumping a precise drumbeat on the building. He tried to make the coin dance across his knuckles again but he got bored of that quickly. He started flipping it, but after a dozen correct heads or tails, he tucked the coin back into his jacket. 

He looked down and realized he hadn’t been doing what he thought he had come to do: he hadn’t been observing any potential targets. 

It was already dark. Any intel would be pointless now, Alec told himself. He swung his legs harder against the building.

Too much time had passed for viable recon. 

Alec nodded to himself.

No good would come out of it. Big load of waste to stick around.

Alec didn’t get up to leave though. And then he realized what he had been really staring at. The real reason he had picked this particular building.

His eyes flicked across the distance to the apartment he was most interested in. The window wasn't open.

Alec found himself back on the roof of that building, almost without conscious thought. He gracefully lowered himself down on his harness until he reached the right floor.

Alec hung there, blinking at the shut window that stood between him and the darkened living room. His hands skimmed the cool surface of the glass trying to find a weakness. He checked to make sure there was no know-it-all jerk sitting inside in the dark molesting a hand gun before attempting to enter. 

Taking out the new alarm was a joke, but even so, Alec appreciated that it was a better system than before. It was crap easy to disengage; it did take him an extra second to do so though. _Points for trying, Heather,_ he thought.

When Alec slipped into the living room, his eyes automatically went to the fireplace. Of course, there was nothing to see and he tore his gaze away from it looking around for—What _was_ he looking for? 

Alec kept a hand on the window, left open should he need to jump through it ASAP in the event its owner returned. He swiveled his head left and right, his breathing shallow as he judged every shadow around him. Even when he determined they were just shadows, the tenseness across his shoulders didn't ease as he moved away from the window and ventured into the apartment. He approached the bedroom door and cocked his head to listen. No typing. No talking. No sounds of sleeping. Alec nudged the door open with his boot. 

Empty. 

Alec frowned.

Straightening, Alec studied his surroundings again. He took a deep breath and exhaled. He couldn’t smell anyone else here. He couldn’t hear and certainly didn’t see anyone else here. 

Alec's shoulders relaxed. 

Better this way. He could take his time snooping around. 

The living room was filled with matching furniture and a TV on the wall. The fireplace has more ash than before. The naked vases still gleamed pervertedly in the hallway, almost as if they were teasing him about his earlier failure to take them. 

The coffee table had a plate with a sandwich. Square white bread, cut diagonally across. There were a few bites on one of the halves.

Alec lifted the plate and took a tentative whiff. Whoa, real peanut butter and jelly. Geez, rich people and their food. He peeled back the bread and took another sniff. Then he gave it a poke. 

The bread was dry on the outside but the filling was thick and gooey. Alec tentatively flicked his tongue over his stained finger. Still fresh. It's only been here since this afternoon then. He tore off around the bitten part and finished the rest of it. It tasted remarkably good. He ignored the unbitten half though.

Smacking his lips together—crazy peanut butter stuck to the roof of his mouth was a sensation he both hated and enjoyed—Alec prowled the living room, pushing each door he encountered open with a finger. He arched an eyebrow at the little exercise room. Guess that explained Heather's physical condition. Probably pumped it out with his very own trainer.

The thought of Heather, sweating and groaning, was...distracting.

_Move it along, 494. Move it along._

__Alec shook his head and proceeded down the hallway. But not before blowing his favorite naked vases a kiss. _Hello, ladies_. He scoffed at the guest room he discovered. It has its own little collection of vases on display. Regular, boring antique vases though. Too bad. He smirked when he got a better look at the room full of computer screens and cameras. His eyebrow rose as his eyes swept across the inventory. Digital cameras, sound boards, computers took up real estate in the small cordoned area.

 _Okay_ , so maybe Heather doesn't just watch porn but _makes_ it too? 

His stomach flip flopped at the thought of that long neck thrown back, eyes sliding closed, hand drifting down to...

A glint of light pulled Alec away from his thoughts and his suddenly dry mouth. He narrowed his eyes, zeroing in on a partially opened drawer in the main computer desk. As he stepped closer, the acrid smell he caught in the air made him frown.

Gun oil.

He shouldn’t been too surprised; the man had been holding a gun when they first met, but this smelled like it was recently used. Alec tentatively pulled the drawer open further with a crooked finger. An opened box of ammo rattled briefly. He counted the empty slots. Twelve. An automatic then, enough for a clip. He thought back to the Glock that was staring at his face. He strode back, this time not bothering to tread lightly and entered the bedroom. He lifted up a pillow by the corner where he remembered Heather pulled it out from under during their earlier encounter. 

Gone. 

A chill went down Alec's back. His shoulders tensed again as he considered the space under the pillow. The sheet underneath was clean, no oil stains. The gun oil was recent. Its scent hovered over the drawer like a ghost. 

So Heather cleaned his gun, filled a magazine clip, took his gun, went out around the afternoon...to do what? And in a wheelchair. So what were his plans, why would he need a gun for it and how did he think he could escape afterwards?

He should go but he found himself roaming around again, doing a quick but more thorough search of the apartment.

There was nothing in the bedroom. Not even that tiny laptop attached to the guy's arm. There were also no photos anywhere. Looked like Heather's camera-shy. No stray id cards lying around. The cordless phone held no memory of previously dialed calls. Not even a magazine on the coffee table with a name and address.

He really needed to leave.

The kitchen was more of the same. The pots were clean and neatly stored. The fridge only had a couple of cartons of expired milk, a jar of peanut butter, grape jelly, bread and a half empty bottle of red wine. The bowl of apples on the kitchen island was gone. 

Alec didn't dare touch the computers. It was too easy to accidentally activate something he shouldn't have on an unknown system. On the workstation, there were stacks of crumpled wanted flyers, a blank RSVP card for some wedding, torn pages with pictures of American paintings and random scraps of paper writing in code. 

There was nothing in the way of a name on anything. And when he examined the camcorder on its tripod, the serial numbers were expertly rubbed off. He expected that even if he had been able to turn the systems on, they’d have been wiped clean.

He needed to leave. _Now._

He kept looking.

The dining area offered some interest: aging folders stacked high in yellowing pillars of various heights. Sticky notes were tucked in them, jutting out like short flags. They looked like they were stuffed with old newspaper clippings. Alec was tempted to look through the top files, but for whatever reason, his eyes kept wandering back to that damn drawer. 

His skin crawled and his feet wouldn't stay still. What the hell was he still doing here? _What are you doing, X-494?_

Alec found himself revisiting the bedroom, the kitchen and the living room again and again. There was nothing here. Nothing to be found. Nothing to be learned. There was nothing to extract. He couldn't make a threat assessment out of nothing.

Where the hell was Heather? 

Alec tensed when he heard the front door opening. He shut off all the lights and retreated back into the shadows, away from the main windows.

There was a knot unraveling in Alec's chest as keys jingled into a pocket. He felt oddly lightheaded when he heard the tread of a wheelchair rolling in. He watched as the shadow traveled past the kitchen, that feeling in his chest loosening further to the point he forgot himself and drawled out:

"Naughty, naughty. You shouldn't be out after curfe—"

Alec bolted a micro-second after he saw the muzzle flash. A bullet zipped by his ear, dug into a wall behind him as he rolled, vaulted over the couch and caught the wrist in an iron grip before the gun could fire again. 

"All that shit you think you know about Manticore," Alec said coolly, not letting go, "and I would think you remember a gun doesn't do..." He paused; the rapid, too fast pulse beating frantically in his grip finally registered. He tugged the gun away by the warm barrel. He grimaced at the hot metal but just readjusted his grip instead of putting it down within reach for Mister Trigger Happy there. He turned on a nearby lamp.

Blinking at the sudden brightness, Heather held up a hand over his eyes. After a beat, he focused on Alec. The harsh breathing slowed as recognition hit him. "Oh," the man said slightly breathless. He lowered his arm.

"Yeah." Alec nodded. Heather was in a dark navy v-neck sweater and leg hugging jeans instead of sweats today. He wondered briefly if they were tight on his ass, too, but he mentally shook that image off before _his_ jeans became too tight.

The thick black leather jacket Heather wore wasn't ugly either. It appeared well-worn, butter soft and wrapped possessively around Heather's shoulders.

For some reason, it was disconcerting to see him in normal street clothes instead of the gray sweats, but it wasn't because Alec missed seeing Heather's bare feet. It really wasn’t.

Heather cleared his throat, drawing Alec’s gaze away from trying to stare through the guy's sneakers. 

"Didn't expect to see you again," Heather said hesitantly. 

"So that..." Alec gestured behind him with the gun. Interestingly enough, the other didn't flinch.

"Thought you were trying to rob me." 

Alec rolled his eyes as the guy headed for the kitchen. Alec followed him and watched him open the refrigerator. "That's the normal response. But you're about a few months slow in your..." He arched an eyebrow when the man pulled out the wine bottle, uncorked it and tipped it back, taking long gulps. 

"Geez, slow down, Heather."

The man glanced over with a furrowed brow. “Who?”

Alec waved him off. "Never mind." He leaned on the back of the couch. He studied the Glock still in his hand. He pulled out the clip.

"What are you doing?"

Alec squinted into the clip. "This has been fired recently."

"No," the man said dryly, "Really?"

Holding up the clip, Alec thumbed out the remaining bullets into his palm. One, two…nine. 

"This was fired recently," Alec repeated tightly. "A lot." And judging the residual warmth of the bullets, it was within the last two hours. "Something else you don't want to share?"

"Old clip," Heather replied in denial. The wine bottle tipped back again. Alec stared at Heather's Adam's apple bobbing as he drank. It gave him a mental picture he wished he had time for but instead he slid his eyes back to the gun in his hand. 

Wordlessly, Alec refilled the magazine. After a pause, he went back to the computer room, grabbed a few more bullets and filled the clip to its maximum. 

With a swift and practiced hand, Alec slid the clip back into the Glock with a familiar _click_ that echoed down his arm. He thumbed back the safety and set the gun down on the coffee table between them. He turned to see the other man had followed him back into living room.

It was interesting to watch those hazel eyes change color like a gem held up to a light. They went deep green as they contemplated the gun then cooled to a flat brown when he set down the bottle and took back the gun with a minutely trembling hand. A normal human would have never noticed it.

"Find what you were looking for?" the man asked as he placed the gun on his lap. "You obviously were here long enough to know where I kept this," his eyes flicked to the gun and then to the coffee table, "and to eat half of my lunch."

At the reminder, Alec's tongue darted out to lick the lingering peanut butter from his lower lip. Aw screw it, it hadn’t killed him by now, so, keeping an eye on Heather, he swiped the other half of the sandwich and chewed on one corner of it. He smirked, bared his jelly-stained teeth at Heather.

"Long enough to know you keep a boring place. Not even a dirty magazine around," Alec said between chews. He looked meaningfully at the bottle the other held. He took a long draught when it was silently passed over to him.

"You're still more than welcome to hock those vases there but that's all you're going to find," the man told him. "You're not going to find anything interesting about me." He rolled his chair towards his bedroom. 

"Doesn't seem fair," Alec pointed out, his voice rising before he could stop himself, "since you apparently know stuff about me." His voice thinned. "Why is that, by the way?"

The wheelchair halted. His back towards Alec, the man shrugged. "I was curious once."

"Once?"

"I'm not going to do anything with it," Heather reassured Alec, still not turning around.

"Uh huh." The sandwich gummed and stuck in Alec's throat. 

"I'm done with that." Heather’s voice was barely audible.

Alec narrowed his eyes. "Done with what?"

The man shook his head. He reached back with his hands to grip his wheels when Alec spoke again.

"You know, you shouldn't be out after curfew," Alec called out.

"There were things I needed to do."

Alec's lips pursed. He cast narrowed eyes on the room again, to see what he must have missed. "After curfew, with a gun?" 

"I work best at night," Heather answered.

Alec scoffed. "I'll bet." He paused as something occurred to him. Alec looked around the room once more, eyes landing on the bullet hole on the wall. Huh. It was the height where his head would be. _Not bad, Heather._ "Hey."

"What?"

Alec frowned to himself. "You would think someone would be breaking down your door by now after that gunshot."

The man wheeled around and surveyed the living room. He shrugged. "The place is soundproof. Unless you're dangling outside my window, no one would have heard it."

Alec scowled. A nice luxury but counterproductive to security if no one can hear you call out for help. He stopped short and reviewed the conversation. He scowled at the guy.

"I don't dangle." 

Alec blinked when the corner of Heather's mouth quirked but it dropped quickly like he couldn't remember how to do it properly. 

Alec didn't know why, but he wanted to see it again. He smirked at him.

"So no one can hear you scream?" Alec teased.

The eyes behind the glasses were blank for a moment, but to Alec's delight, they rolled up. "I'm not a screamer," the man said wryly.

Alec blatantly scanned Heather up and down. "Or so you think." He leered. “Maybe you just haven’t been with the right person.”

The flush brushed across those angular cheekbones sent a pool of heat down Alec's groin. 

Heather coughed briefly and turned to leave. "So what did you come to steal this time?" 

Alec swore under his breath and checked the room, finally settling on what was in his hand. "Your lunch." Alec crammed the last morsel of sticky, gooey mess into his mouth. He tried to wash it down with the last of the wine and made a face. Milk would have been better. He looked down at his now empty hand. "Hey, you didn't still want that, did you?"

The shrug Alec received in reply bothered him for some reason. 

"No, I wasn't in the mood for it." The ease in the man's voice dampened back to that flat, disinterested tone. 

_What the hell could he been in the mood for_ , Alec thought. There was nothing else in the fridge. He brushed the crumbs off his shirt. "Anyway, thanks for the eats. Gotta bounce. Time to get back to work."

"I meant what I said about Manticore."

Alec froze. 

"I said I was done, so I'm done." The wheelchair started then stopped again. "But I guess to make us even...Logan Cale."

Alec stared at the profile turned away from him. He set his mouth, his gaze wandering around the living room. He returned back to the man, at his jacket, his jeans, his sneakers. His jeans...

"Dean," Alec said finally. He almost wanted to say 494 but it got stuck in his throat. "You can call me Dean."

Even though Alec couldn't see Logan Cale's face, he could read the surprise stiffening the shoulders.

"Oh." Cale didn't sound like he had expected a name back. "Okay." He gestured feebly towards the bedroom. "I need to..."

"Sure." Alec watched him enter his bedroom and shut the door. A few minutes later, he could hear the familiar typing that he’d already gotten used to.

Alec looked around the living room. Logan Cale, huh? Wonder what he could find out with that? 

As Alec headed towards the window, he stopped, turned on his heels and studied the empty plate on the coffee table. He glanced back at the bedroom. The typing never paused. 

Minutes later, Alex slipped out through the window after setting down a new peanut butter jelly sandwich on the coffee table to replace the one he ate. He didn't cut in half though. He wasn't going to do everything for that Logan Cale. He could cut his own damn sandwiches.

The problem with hitting one payload after another; there was no need to hit another one for a while.

Alec paced the roof, swinging his arms in large arcs, relishing the afternoon sun on his back. The advantage of being this high up, he mused, was there were no hoverdrones. Those floating creepers couldn’t get up this high with the wind shear. He could stay up here all he wanted, even nude sunbathing if he wanted. Not that he did, but Alec liked the idea that he could. 

Under the sun, he did push-ups, counting first in Urdu then in Farsi. While police sirens wailed below, he did sit-ups, couple of reps of lats and threw in some Tai Chi for good measure. He counted by the square root of five, nine, hell even by point six but by the time the sun traveled ten degrees across the sky, he was done.

With a growl that rumbled out of his throat, Alec dropped supine onto the bedroll he laid out. 

_**Bored**_.

Alec scowled. He sat up easily and pulled up his knees to his chest. Arms folded on top of his knees, Alec scowled over them to the building across from him. It stood five stories shorter than the one he was on but even focusing on the windows, there was nothing to see. Not even one naked, naughty tryst to ogle at. 

Below him, he could hear someone's television on full blast. Probably the old lady. He could hear the Beijing hockey team beating the crap out of Berlin's, duking it out in the newly bought Madison Square Garden. 

There was a crackle. Alec perked up at the noise and got closer to the raised ledge. Arms hung over the edge, head canted, he could hear an Eyes Only broadcast outing mayoral candidate Carter Stokes as a pedophile who was paying for his appetite with campaign funds. Ouch. If he thought there was any point to voting, Richards would have lost his. Then again, X-5s weren't registered voters. They weren't registered anything despite their barcodes.

A shadow crossed over Alec's face. Maybe he should hit Stokes's house anyways. While there might not be anything of value left by the time he got there, the trashing and crashing of the place would be fun. He hadn't ripped anything apart with his bare hands in a while. He sat there, swinging his arms lazily over the side of the building, face resting on the edge, smirking as he listened to Eyes Only expertly tear apart Richards' career with a few words and probably a nasty video. As much as a cocky son-of-a-bitch Eyes Only must be, his choice of words was fun to listen to. And those eyes looked kinda hot. Alec was sure the rest of him was too. Eyes Only sounded like a hot kinda guy. A bit of a pain with all his 'shame-on-you' hacks, but still sort of hot.

Then, just as abruptly it came, the broadcast hack was done. The little old lady cheered and it was back to the announcer cursing in Mandarin about a foul. After the sun started setting, the old lady turned off her television so Alec didn't even have that anymore.

Alec breathed out sharply through his nose, dislodging an ant diligently crossing the ledge with a crumb five times its size. He yawned and watched it skitter closer to him. Then he sneezed and watched it tip over onto the roof, feet flailing in the air until it righted itself and continued on its way before Hurricane Alec interfered.

"Least you got something to do," he told it. He idly checked over the side, two levels below. Logan Cale was probably sleeping the sleep of the well-to-do, after a hot and heavy night of Internet porn. 

Alec brightened. That meant Cale was asleep, _in bed_. Or he could be out past curfew again doing whatever he was doing before. While there was nothing of his Alec wanted to steal (yet), there was the rest of the apartment to explore closer. He didn’t understand it, but he wanted to finish recon and find out why Logan Cale was such a know-it-all.

\---

Cale wasn't asleep.

He wasn't out either.

Alec watched, upside down from his line, transfixed as Cale did some sort of adaptive push-ups. 

When he first rappelled down (he switched it up because he hadn't done it in a while), he thought Cale had fallen when he saw his prone body in the middle of the living room floor. But before he went through the window, he spotted the ankle weights and Cale abruptly came back to life when he pushed off the floor with his hands.

Up, down, up, down, Cale rose in perfect form: shoulder width, back straight, neck in neutral position. He could only curl up from his lower abs but it did _very_ interesting things below the waist anyway.

Whatever had damaged Cale's ability to walk, it still left some muscle activity below the waist. Enough that his buttocks tightened as he moved and the top part of the back of his thighs flexed when engaged. The gray sweats (doesn't this guy have any other clothes?) was damp with sweat and clung to certain places that left no doubt what physical condition Logan Cale was in.

Watching him upside down was like watching Cale straining back towards him, long body meeting thrust after thrust. Alec could imagine smoothing his hands down that trim flank, his tongue running down the line of that throat, stubble scrapping the tip of his tongue, that ass rearing back on his co—

Jesus on a stick, he could definitely hit _that_.

Hypnotic and strangely graceful, Cale bobbed up and down in front of Alec, his upper body flexing and coiling up. The line of his spine curved him into a bow and _fuck_ , that ass clenched. Alec scrubbed a hand across his mouth. The sun must be right behind him; sweat started to pool between his shoulders as he hung suspended by the window.

At some point during Alec's private pornographic peep show, Cale picked up the pace, his hips weakly snapping back and forth, up and down. And for a few seconds, Alec's breath quickened, his ears roaring but both of that faded when he took a closer look.

Cale was trembling.

Not his entire body; only his arms. Slick with sweat, pale save a ‘farmer’s’ tan line that was already fading, Cale's arms shook at each rep. Alec could see from his side profile that his mouth was partially open as he panted, his eyes squeezed shut in effort, and his thick hair was a dark brown matted mess plastered on his forehead. As Alec watched, the left elbow gave out and Cale dropped. But before Alec could do anything—although what he would have done he still wasn't sure—Cale flipped himself around until he was on his back. He sat up shakily.

Shoulders slumped, Cale sat there with his legs out stretched, his head bowed, upper body shuddering with exertion. After a moment, he made a fist and thumped the carpet. Then he did it again.

Alec watched, still upside down, his stomach churning like he wanted to throw up. _That's what you get for hanging with your ass up in the air, idiot._ He debated whether to knock on the window when Cale tensed and jerked his head up.

Righting himself up, Alec met Cale's wide-eyed expression with a tight feeling in his chest. All he could think to do was...wave. The crooked smile on his face felt grafted on and not fitting with the rest of him.

Green eyes flared to an even more vibrant green in some kind of agitation that Alec couldn’t interpret. Cale stared at Alec, his eyes wandering to the hand still awkwardly held up in the air. He nodded jerkily.

They stared at each other through the panes of glass. Alec could feel the sun behind him cooling, descending into darkness and sending shadows over Cale's face. Alec hesitantly pointed to his watch, shrugged one shoulder and pointed up. 

Relief flickered across Cale's face. He nodded again before his gaze slid away. 

Alec reeled his line up but watched the top of Cale's bowed head until he couldn't see it anymore. When his feet reached the top edge of the window, Alec stopped. He watched the glimpses of shadows on the carpet to tell him the rest of the story. 

Cale managed to pull himself up onto the nearby wheelchair. He sat there for a long time, hands rubbing up and down his thighs. Then, the chair rotated around and headed for the bedroom.

When that shadow disappeared into the other room, Alec ascended up the rest of the way. He sat on the ledge, not looking down but not quite looking anywhere else either. Finally, when that weird tightness in his chest and throat couldn't be ignored any more, he hopped off the ledge and headed for the Stokes's house.

\---

The place was empty again.

He didn’t know why he came back but Alec hung by the window sill, hands on the frames as he studied the living room. He pressed closer, peering in, the tip of his nose bumping the glass.

The place looked different in the daylight. With the dark carpet and equally dark walls, the room looked almost sterile.

His face screwed up with distaste.

The place looked better in the dark, Alec decided. The corners were not as blocky, the flat surfaces not as flat, the shadows made the living room fuller and more interesting. Now, it just looked like a room—a plain, boring, empty room. 

Unbidden, his eyes drifted to the spot on the carpet the afternoon light spotlighted. His nostrils flared as he recalled Cale on that spot, flushed and straining as he moved doing his calisthenics. He remembered a droplet of sweat that had trickled down from the back of Cale’s neck, trailing into his top. His skin had gleamed like he had been rubbed down with oil. Hard lines had tapered down to a fit torso before it swelled out into that firm ass begging to be f—

Alec's right hand slipped. Muscles kicked in, flexed his lower back and curled his fingers on the sill tighter. He clutched the window, his chest expanding and contracting as he fought for balance. He fumbled to disarm the alarm. He hopped gracelessly into the living room in a shaky land that would have earned him a 28K run with no breakfast as penance in Manticore. He slid the window shut behind him. He leaned back. His head dropped back and rapped on the glass lightly. 

Shaking his head, Alex scowled at the stupid window and dropped down to the carpet, neatly folding himself into an Indian pose as he sat. He braced his back against the couch and faced towards the very window he came through. Alec let his eyes go cloudy in thought.

After a week of gross destruction—courtesy of Eyes Only and his week-long fevered campaign to expose every dirtbag in Terminal City—Alec was finally feeling like the skin around his bones belonged to him again. Break, break, destroy didn't require much cash though so he was still in the black and bored bored bored.

Alec unfolded and rolled onto his stomach on the carpet. He felt the sun rays that drifted through the glass settle on his shoulders. Alec hummed in the warmth. He propped his chin up with a fist as he idly studied the thick cords of carpet fiber.

There wasn't much about Logan Cale he had been able to find. And after breaking windows and punching walls lost its novelty, the thought of deciphering Cale was oddly appealing. Sneaking into the abandoned libraries hadn’t been much work but cobbling together intel pre-Pulse on Cale had proved to be an interesting challenge. That occupied him for a couple of days.

There were a slew of scathing articles Cale wrote about cookie cutter governments and antiquated regulations. If there was a flaw among the ranks, Cale had minced it and raked it over coals for the public's digestion. Alec found himself chuckling at some of the cutting witticism. Geez, this guy could make _Lydecker_ cry with a few choice words. He didn't seem afraid of sharing his opinion or pointing out who screwed the pooch. 

There were even a few articles on genetic engineering programs, back when Manticore was still just an article number on an appropriations bill waiting for Washington funding. Alec skipped those; he wasn't sure he wanted to read what Cale thought about it.

But after the Pulse...Nothing.

From what Alec _could_ find out: Logan Cale was doing surprisingly well despite the Pulse. Yet Alec couldn't find any evidence of Cale continuing his writing or held any kind of employment. There was speculation of a trust fund, but what the hell was Cale doing besides spending money from it?

Was Cale writing porn after all? Alec made a face. Nah. As nice (and kinky) that thought was, it didn't explain the gun, the late nights. Maybe Logan Cale was still writing his articles.

Digging through old newspapers and catalogs of media disks from after the Pulse, Alec only found a three-line mention in a blog that said Logan Cale was sighted one day in a wheelchair, but there was no mention of what had happened. There were forum responses: some were shocked, some were snide. In general, most had said he probably pissed off someone and had it coming, but nothing else was mentioned after that. Logan Cale no longer proved to be interesting to anyone. 

Alec scowled, his frown half-buried in the carpet. Assholes. All of them.

His fingers made furrows in the carpet. He took a deep steadying breath before something occurred to him. He lifted himself on his elbows and stared at the floor underneath him. This was the exact spot Cale was doing his...exercise. 

Alec lowered himself down. He rubbed fingers into the thick material and took a tentative sniff. Of course there wouldn't be anything here. Cale probably has maids or butlers or manservants or boy toys or whoever vacuuming and shampooing his carpets on a regular basis. 

There was nothing here to suggest Cale lain on this spot, right here, his body roughly rocking against the carpet as he lifted himself off the floor. Since Cale could only move his upper body, his lower body must have been rhythmically rubbing into the rug. 

Thin sweatpants are barely a barrier; there was sure to be carpet burn all the way down his legs. His crotch, lax and vulnerable, maybe swelled and filled helplessly unnoticed as hips ground against the carpet in an effort to lift up. Or maybe Cale did feel it, but unable to do anything about it during his set. The friction—fuck— of the rough texture grinding those thin pants over his groin would have left him aching and heavy between those long legs. Shit, Cale would have been so sensitive there, maybe even cum with only a touch—

When the front door rattled, Alec came back to his senses with a jolt. He raised his head; the sun had somehow faded from warming his back, already retreating into the horizon. And he realized that he had been humping the carpet and aching. His cock, hard as a rock, was trapped in the confines of his jeans. All it needed was one quick and sure pull of a long, tapered hand gliding down his length, skimming over sensitized skin with calluses borne from—

A light went on, beyond Alec's visual range, in the foyer.

 _Shit_ , the door!

Alec rolled up into a crouch. His skin burned with the sensation of being stretched beyond his bones, buzzing his nerves and raising the hair on the back of his neck. He felt his neglected erection throbbing hot in his jeans and his thighs trembled with effort. He made his way quickly back to the window.

He heard the wheelchair, the tacky squeak of rubber on marble. He didn't dare look. He fixated on the window and quietly slipped back on his harness, leaped off from the balls of his feet through the window, caught the free line and was back up on the roof just as he could see the flare of a lamp go off in the living room. 

Alec gave himself three demerits and 30K for his clumsy dismount over the raised ledge and ungainly flop onto the roof. He lay there, staring at a night sky that promised a blanket of stars later. He felt his heart hammering, drumming out a beat in his jugular like it was going to burst out into an arterial spray.

_Shit, shit, shit. What the hell, X-494?_

The erection wilted but the sticky feeling of panic still clung to his skin. Alec gaped at the sky and swallowed hard. He rolled onto his side and tentatively peered over the edge. He could see the yellow, powdery beam of light. Every light must have been turned on down there. He wondered if Cale suspected he had had a visitor.

Alec waited until each light dulled and the glow vanished from the windows. He slowed his breathing, got to his feet and left.

It wasn't until he got back to his new shitty hole-in-the-wall, did he remember he had left Cale's window wide open.

The feel of rough cement block was distracting.

Alec's left hand splayed out next to Fifty's ear. Of course, Fifty wasn’t the man’s real name or any of the other guys' names these past few days. The perverts were only good for the cash and it beat squatting a certain rooftop for three weeks.

Fifty gasped out, "Harder" and Alec obliged. After all, customer was right and all that shit.

Alec always found naming his clients himself was better than repeatedly going through the awkward "How are ya?" pleasantries with them. The bills they waved in front of him were names enough. It's not like Alec was going to put them on his mailing list or something. He stared idly at the mole on Fifty's ear as they stood face to face. His fingers pressed into the coarse, grainy texture of gray cinder block behind Fifty. 

By his ear, Fifty panted as he frantically fucked Alec's right hand. His protruding gut kept butting into Alec. Gross. 

The usual sex talk was being grunted. Fifty was groaning about how good it felt, telling Alec what he would like to do next, how he bet he could be the best fuck Alec ever has. Blah, blah, woof, woof. Alec almost rolled his eyes. He was bored but no reason to make Fifty think otherwise. _Whatever_. Fifty dollars was all the guy said he had so fifty dollars worth of a handjob was all he was going to get.

Not that Fifty was complaining.

As Alec studied some graffiti a Steelhead had tagged the wall—idiot needed a dictionary—Alec grasped Fifty’s cock tighter, squeezing that fat vein. Geez, the guy's pulse was fast. Hopefully Fifty wasn't going to expire on him; bad for business.

Alec dug in with the fleshy part of his thumb at the base, forestalling the inevitable conclusion. Fifty whimpered, his hips bucking towards Alec's fist. Alec bit back the grimace; Fifty was sweaty and seriously needed to lose a pound or a hundred. He ran his thumb down the twitching length, pressed a knuckle into the loose foreskin ( _ew_ ) but stalled from pulling. Even though they say they want it fast and dirty, they never really do. And if his john shoots his load early, there's no tip for Alec unless he lifts Fifty's wallet.

_"...think I'm gonna rat out my boss for just..."_

Alec scowled. The alleys were popular today, he grumbled to himself. He grimaced as Fifty whined for release. His open fly scratched Alec's knuckles because Fifty balked at pulling his pants down to his knees.

His eyes flashed to another Steelhead’s graffiti railing about weak human flesh. Alec silently agreed with the freak’s assessment as Fifty's hips snapped forward, all gruff, macho promises quickly forgotten as release continued to be denied. Fifty was pleading now and—Geez, did this guy just call him " _Baby_?"

Frowning, Alec changed his grip, gliding down to the purpling tip to rub his thumb over the weeping slit. Fifty promptly forgot all pet names and just babbled. Alec felt sorry for the guy and returned to that brisk jerk and pull that brought Fifty into his personal space and back.

_"...that gun is not gonna be enough..."_

Alec's scab itched. Okay, someone over there was doing something _kinky_. Hopefully, whoever it was, he was getting well paid for it.

Meanwhile, Fifty moved his hands onto Alec's shoulders despite the rules Alec told him before. But Alec, trying to pull off the finishing touches to his fifty bucks, could only shrug them off and now one hand drifted to cup his ass.

"Hey, that costs extra," Alec snarled and distracted him with a good hard yank. Fifty yipped, shuddered and the bastard came over Alec's upper thigh and hip without warning. Warm cum stained his jeans and Alec could feel the warm damp semen soaking through. Fifty's head dropped back to the wall as he gaped up towards a sky hidden by clotheslines and pollution.

"Wait, I have...another fifty..." Fifty came to his senses and was fumbling with his billfold. He reached out and clamped a hand over Alec's ass to pull him closer. "Just a quick fuck. I'll even let you cum."

Alec picked at his jeans. His lips pulled back in his best impersonation of a smile. He should just take that second fifty anyway for hazard pay. Damn it, these were his favorite jeans. No, wait, they were his _only_ jeans. His head shot up, getting his first good look at the saggy cheeks, beady eye face of the man he’d just jacked off. Shit, Fifty _was_ the perfect name. Alec realized he looked familiar and was on some Election Day poster somewhere.

Desperate, Fifty was pawing Alec now. He squeezed and rubbed a pudgy hand over Alec's butt. 

"Or your mouth. I'll pay for your mouth..."

Alec raised an arm to slap Fifty's hand away.

_"...maybe give you a better ride than that chair of yours. Wasting that cute ass on that chair. Was promised a bonus..."_

_"Sorry. Not interested."_

_"Does it look like I care?"_

Alec froze. Was that...?

Fifty took that as agreement and he planted his plump fingers on Alec's shoulders to push him down on his knees. His exposed crotch, still wet and sticky, was already showing signs of life. Alec cursed that stupid blue pill he spied the man popping before struggling out of his sports car.

_"...what makes you think I won't shoot you first?"_

The even voice finally registered in Alec’s head. His eyes zipped towards its direction.

_"What makes you think I came alone this time?_

Shit. _Shit!_

Somewhere in the back of his mind, Alec noted Fifty probably wouldn't become one of his regular customers since Alec gave him a hard shove that sent him crashing on his bare fat ass, his pants now twisted around his ankles.

The way the voices had carried, Alec guessed they were to his east. The echoes had bounced off concrete, there was no cross wind, the alleyways were narrow so it was coming from—why the fuck were there so many alleys? What's with the god damn maze?

A gunshot echoed through the alleys.

Alec skidded to a halt. He stared at the walls in dismay. It sounded like it came from everywhere. He spun around. He should be able to pinpoint it. _Come on X-494, find your target!_

_"Piece of shit!"_

The sound of flesh impacting flesh sounded as loud as the gunshot. Someone was getting beaten. As expected, no one opened their windows at the sounds of trouble. But Alec looked up and saw scared young faces, eight stories above him, staring transfixed in a direction to his left. He twisted around and ran.

_"...if there's anything left of you after we're done, tell your boss that money and a piece of your ass ain't going to be enough to get us to rat..."_

Alec's hearing cut out on him, like a radio transmission giving way to a roar of static. It felt like his ribs were pushing to crack out of his chest. His legs burned as they ran the distance of six alleyways.

The sounds of grunting, swearing and one more gunshot spurred Alec faster, to take that last corner. He could see shadows flickering of two people standing under a street light. Alec heard growling and it took a second to realize it was him.

He burst into the alley and skidded to a halt.

Two men, limping and swearing, were already halfway down the alley. After a few more steps, they disappeared around a corner.

Alec took another step deeper into the alley. 

A safety clicked behind him.

"Stay where you are. Hands up," was the breathy order. Even under the strain of exertion, Alec knew that voice.

Despite the gun, Alec exhaled sharply. He turned slowly and stared, hands up as ordered.

Cale was sitting on the filthy ground, one leg awkwardly bent under him, his shirt torn all the way to reveal a heaving chest. His eyeglasses were missing, leaving his face exposed and stark. Bruises already formed and darkened the shadows under his eyes. Cale squinted, looking as if he was trying to focus. One arm was propped to support him, the other was straight out, holding that familiar Glock aimed towards Alec’s head.

Alec cleared his throat. "You know, this is the third time you've pointed a gun at me. Starting to take it personal."

The gun wavered then steadied. Cale squinted harder, nearly squeezing his eyes shut. The harsh breathing evened out.

"...Dean?"

Alec shrugged carefully but made no move towards the gun he knew he could easily take. "Hey."  
The gun hovered indecisively before finally lowering.

Alec lowered his hands in return. "I was...I was in the neighborhood..." His chuckle lodged in his throat. Three weeks of lurking only on Cale's rooftop since his last visit had evaporated anything he might have wanted to say. "I uh..." He frowned. "Hey, where's your chair?"

Cale waved wearily over his shoulder towards the wall where it lay on its side. He watched Alec right it and brought it back to him. Cale said nothing as he ran his hands over it inspecting for damage.

Alec stood there, shifting from foot to foot when Cale finally spoke up.

"Could you..." Cale sighed. "Turn around or something?"

"Oh yeah, sure." Alec faced the open end of the alley, keeping a look out for any other potential dangers. He stared at the blood he could see even in the dark. It had splattered across the alley as the attackers fled. He could hear Cale panting, grunting under his breath. The wheelchair creaked, the seat made a weird stretching sound as Cale’s weight settled on it. A wheel squeaked and clicked as if it fought to stay still. But Alec didn't turn around again. He considered the blood on the ground. Droplets gleamed in meager moonlight. It was still fresh. If he took off now, he could catch them. They were injured; they could easily be cornered. He wanted to finish the job Cale started.

"All right."

It was the wheeze Alec could hear that aborted Alec's plan before he could take one step towards the congealing trail. He turned to face Cale, who was slipping the Glock into a shoulder holster under his jacket. It took him two tries.

"You see my glasses anywhere?" Cale panted. 

Alec had been staring at the sky, waiting and not wanting to make him uncomfortable, but at Cale's question, he gave the ground a scan. "Nah. Can you see okay without them?" He couldn’t imagine relying on two pieces of glass for clear vision. 

"Distance, I'm fine, but don't ask me to read anything to you." Cale rubbed his eyes, widened them and sighed. 

"You uh..." Alec rubbed a hand over the back of his neck. When Cale lifted his eyes, Alec cringed suddenly aware how much he must reek and of how perfectly lined up his stained jeans were to Cale's eye level. Even without glasses, there was no mistaking what the stain was on the worn denim. 

Alec's fingers absently picked at the fresh scabbing in the back of his neck.

Cale was zipping up his jacket with concentration, closing it all the way to his throat, over the ripped shirt and the scratches on his chest. 

Alec averted his eyes when he realized he was staring at the dark hairs across Cale's chest. Cale coughed and suddenly the ground was interesting again.

"Give me a second to...hang on..." Cale focused intensely on putting on fingerless gloves before he set his hands on the handrims after releasing the brakes. 

Suddenly, Alec tensed. An all too familiar wire thin hum vibrated in his ears.

"What is it?"

Alec flicked an uneasy eye back towards the sky. "Hoverdrone. Maybe two hundred meters, four o'clock. Guess it heard those gunshots after all." His toes flexed in his boots. He scanned the alley. No doors. Maybe there was a hiding place around the corner?

"Come on," Cale said, turning towards one of the forking alleys. "My car is over there."

Alec resisted the urge to clamp his hands over the push handles to urge Cale to hurry the fuck up. He could hear the hum of the drone, cutting the sky as they buzzed closer to where they were. The drones weren't rushing; they seemed content to bob over to report on the blood trail they must have found.

It was hard to ignore the sharp, high pitched whine though. It sounded like saws, grinding metal teeth on bones. 

Cale seemed to be taking his damn time getting to wherever his car was, calm even as he murmured, "We're almost there" when Alec bumped into the back of his chair for the third time. He nodded towards a dusty silver gray hatchback and Alec trotted over, yanking open the door with a fist over the car keys he snatched out of Cale's hands.

"I'll drive," Alec said tersely as he peered into the car. He gaped at the sight of no pedals on the car floor, unknown levers on the steering wheel. He knew what they were for, but for some messed up reason, he couldn’t recall how to work around them.

"Maybe I should drive," Cale suggested, finally reaching Alec’s side.

"Uh, sure." Alec numbly stepped aside.

\---

It sounded as if the drone was in the car with them, humming, drilling, watching as Cale transferred over to the driver's seat and Alec stowed his wheelchair in the back. Alec knew that he and Cale were both trying to act calm so the hoverdrone would just see two harmless people dealing with their own issues. Once inside and trapped in the passenger seat, Alec hated it more each minute; he constantly scanned behind them through the windshield for any sign the hoverdrone had decided to follow them

"There's a warehouse on Third that opens up to a docking station and railroads," Alec said tightly. His mind drew up maps. "If we take that, there's an old unfinished tunnel that will get us out of this sector and bypass the security checks." He grimaced as he studied the car he was in. "It's a rough drive but if we take it slow, it should make it. No headlights or they'll see but I can tell you if we're about to hit something."

"No need," Cale murmured. "I have a rider on my ID to exempt me up to three hours past curfew." His mouth twisted with the admission. "Medical exemption."

"That's great." Alec didn't mean to snap. "But _I_ don't." He grabbed the door handle, ready to jump out of the car to get out. "Look, just stop over there by that manhole. I can—"

"I have a few sector IDs," Cale interrupted. "They all have medical riders for assistants."

Alec stared at the spot he'd pointed out to Cale on the side mirror. "So?"

Cale reached over to the cupholder that was slotted between the seats and pulled out a handful of plastic ID cards. He tossed them onto Alec's lap. 

"How fast can you splice your photo onto one of them?" Cale asked as he narrowed his eyes myopically through the windshield.

"Geez," Alec said nervously. "You go through a lot of nurses?" He flipped through the ids, squinting at their faces. "John Winchester? Yeah, no. Abigail Perrette? Nah. Left my boobs in the other car. Tony DiNo—" 

Alec plucked out one card.

"Bling Stewart," he read out loud. "Yeah, that could be anyone. I look like I could be a Bling." He flashed the card with the stoic dark face next to his grin. "I can't pull that bald look right now, but other than that, what do you think?"

Cale was suddenly focusing hard on the road. He didn't spare Alec a glance. 

Alec turned the ID in his hand. That was one stern looking guy. "You sure this Bling Stewart is alright about suddenly being a Caucasian?"

"He...he's not using it anymore," Cale muttered. His jaw flexed. "You have a photo you can splice onto that?" Cale asked as he narrowed his eyes to focus on the road. "There's some laminate film in the glove compartment. So long no one take a close enough look, it'll pass."

Alec fished out a bunch of his backup ids from a hidden inside pocket. Cale flicked a gaze over but didn't comment. In fact, he didn't even look surprised.

"How fast?" Cale said as he turned a corner, away from the checkpoints to circle around to buy them time.

Alec pulled out his blade. It snapped open with a clean sounding _snick_.

"Fast," Alec said succinctly and set to work. “Keep driving.”

\---

As the car finally neared the sector gate, Alec's hand lashed out and latched onto the steering wheel.

"What are you doing?" Alec hissed. "This is the main checkpoint." He stared, past the four cars ahead of them and at the sector police who were standing by the main gate like it was their stronghold. Two drones bobbed behind them, their camera lens jutting out like cannons.

"There's a side sector gate on Cleaver," Alec continued, staying low in his seat. He kept his eyes on the hoverdrones. "No drones, maybe one cop, usually busy shaking down the squatters when he isn't too drunk."

"That's all the way back there. My way's faster," Cale just said as the car rolled leisurely forward.

Alec curled a hand around the door handle. There were only three cars in front of them now.

His thighs flexed. His eyes darted to his right. The police were thinner in ranks there. A custody bus stood like a barricade, but he could easily jumped that and into the catwalks. The roofs weren't an option. They were too vulnerable, too short and hoverdrones would easily be able to track him. 

Two cars now. Alec nudged the handle down a fraction. 

If he could shimmy into that garbage chute, out into street level on the other side of the fence, he knew there would be manholes. Hoverdrones can't go underground. 

"Just hold onto your id," Cale murmured out of the corner of his mouth, eyes still upfront.

Alec's breathing quickened. He pushed down on the handle more, lower, the rubber seal on the door squeaked.

Take two out, leap onto the bus, drones are fast but he's faster...

"It'll be fine." A hand slid down and the heel of Cale's hand brushed against Alec's knuckles still curled tight around the steering wheel. The touch was brief, but warm. By the time Alec looked back, Cale was smiling genially at a sector police officer, who tilted his helmet back to eye them both almost cross-eyed through the opened driver's window.

Alec painfully uncurled his hand around the handle. 

"Logan Cale?" The officer sneezed onto the id, all over Cale but didn't look apologetic as he leaned into the car. His hooked nose and narrowed eyes gave him a hungry look. "You're out past curfew."

Cale shrugged. "Sorry." He gestured towards his legs. "Takes me longer to get around. My pass should indicate my medical status."

Alec silently bristled as bored eyes flicked to Cale's pass then to his legs. There was a brief smirk before it went back to that bored expression from before.

"Yeah, guess it would take awhile in your condition." _Poor bastard_ was left unvoiced.

Cale was still smiling that stupid, fake, no tooth grin at the officer like he was just paid a compliment. "It does."

Now the scrutiny drifted to Alec and narrowed further. 

"That your nurse?"

"My PCA," Cale said smoothly before Alec could do anything more than lean towards the window. "His pass has a medical exception attached to my id." Cale's right shoulder rounded back minutely and it looked like he was just shifting more comfortably in his seat but it bumped into Alec's left shoulder. Alec eased back, copied Cale's smile and raised a hand to show the pass, his finger just over one edge of the photo he couldn't clean up in time.

There was a terse moment when it looked like the officer was going to ask to see it when Cale spoke up, his gruff tenor slurring to a sheepish tone.

"Uh, could we hurry this up, please?" Alec fought not to gape when a tightly rolled hundred dollar bill passed deftly from Cale's hand, under his sector pass into the officer's dirt smudged fingers. "I need to get back for my nurse to help me." A shrug and a duck of the head. "Uh, bathroom help." Cale seemed convincingly embarrassed.

Alec wasn't sure why he wanted to lunge across Cale's lap to the window when the officer sneered. 

"Of course," the bastard said pleasantly as he pocketed the money. "Do you need directions on how to get back?"

The knuckles on the steering wheel were white but Cale's smile broadened. "Please."

\---

No one spoke as the car slipped into the building's underground garage. The car was parked. Cale transferred back into his chair and somehow, they never managed to meet each other’s eyes while doing all of this work.

Alec silently followed Cale to the underground elevator where he halted.

"Uh..."

Cale turned around in his chair. At the sight of Alec standing there, his eyes dulled.

"Oh...sure...guess you have to..."

"There are cameras in the elevators," Alec blurted out. For some reason, Cale's look flew to his face, the bland expression he wore the whole time gone.

"The cameras." Cale appeared taken aback. "You...cameras...right...I thought maybe..."

Maybe Cale took a hard knock on the head because he wasn't making too much sense. But Alec couldn't get a good look at his eyes because Cale was busying not watching his. Alec rubbed a palm on his jeans, acutely aware of what was drying there.

"I need to get on the roof. It's the best way to bypass the cameras. I'll…The roof. I'll see you in a bit." Alec could feel Cale watching him as he trotted towards the stairs for street level, looking for the blind spots he could duck under to scale to the top.

\---

The window wasn't open. 

Alec stared at the glass, fingers digging a firm hold on the edges of the window panel. The spare line he'd left on the rooftop was a short one; just enough to reach here so there wasn't much room to swing over to check the other windows. But there was never a need. If a window was going to be open, it would be this one. This was his window, damn it. 

The living room was dark, clearly empty. He frowned. He pressed his nose to the glass. No, definitely empty. What the hell?

Disarming the alarm without his tools took a few seconds longer than usual. He landed neatly onto the carpeted floor. Feet planted apart, knees bent, he studied the living room. He screwed up his face when he spotted a plate of half eaten cold toast, the jelly smeared on it long crusted into a clotted mess. He padded a circuit around the room, peering into the bedroom, the kitchen, that weird computer room. Nothing.

Alec calculated how long it should take for an elevator of that capacity coupled with Cale's weight going at a rate of point seven meters per second. His brow furrowed at the total as he walked towards the front door.

There was a scrape of keys by the door. Alec paused. The keys dropped, jangled as they were picked up, dropped again after a few more unsuccessful scrapes towards the lock.

His fingers stopped short of wrapping around the door knob. When the keys dropped again, there was an unsteady exhale. Alec snatched back his hand and darted back to the living room and vaulted into the long couch just as the key finally steadied enough to slide into the lock. When the door open, he saw Cale's shadow pausing, perhaps to eye the shadows and light from the foyer. The wheelchair creaked across the hardwood floors and noisily turned into the general area.

Alec tested putting his hands behind his head and crossing his ankles. He crammed the toast into his mouth. He nearly spit it out but managed to speak around the powdery mess in his mouth, "Didn't you have any more peanut butter?"

The wheelchair stilled. Cale said nothing at first but Alec could hear a barely suppressed inhale before Cale replied unsteadily, "Wasn't in the mood for it." 

Alec wondered if he was ever in the mood for anything then almost smiled at his own lurid thoughts. He sat up and peered over the back of the couch to observe Cale removing the gun from his holster and settling it on his lap. 

"Anything hurting?" Alec asked carefully.

Cale gave him a weird sort of laugh. "Not that I can feel." He gave his legs a half-hearted pat though, barely giving them more than a cursive look. "No, looks like I'm in one piece." 

Alec fidgeted in the couch. "No. I mean…They didn't...In the alley, I heard, I mean, did they..."

"No," Cale said firmly. "They didn't." He rubbed a finger around his temple. "I need to—"

"Hey," Alec called out as the wheelchair rolled slowly towards the bedroom. He didn't know why, but his gut twisted the moment Cale started for the bedroom. "Mind if I grab a shower?"

Cale shrugged. He stared at his bedroom door with such longing Alec wanted to break that thing down. "There's a shower in the guest room," Cale offered.

"Actually," Alec said hurriedly. "Could I use that one in there?" He grinned toothily as he pointed to the master bedroom. "You have a very nice tub in there." His smile faded when Cale hesitated. But when the guy nodded, something uncoiled in Alec's chest. He didn't question it: he'd just wanted to soak in that tub when he first saw it.

\---

Alec sat on the edge of the tub, freshly pink and scrubbed, and enjoyed the clean smell of shower gel. When he climbed in and turned on shower, there was an incredibly stupid and impractical urge to grab the soap softening in the soap dish. It was nothing special: it smelled soap-like, looked soap-like and was probably unhygienic from when Cale used it all over his body. He touched the soap, thought about gliding it under his cock, over his hole, smooth it over his pecs and he grew lightheaded. This is what he got for not eating before work.

The shower, though, wasn't his and Alec was very aware of the fact he wasn't alone in this space so he hurriedly took a hot shower with lots and lots of shower gel. He stepped out feeling a few kilos lighter. 

After, Alec tried cleaning the stiff spot on his jeans that had cracked in his grip. He sat on the edge of the tub, feeling panicked as he scrubbed and scrubbed the stain. 

The stain wouldn't come out.

In fact it looked like it had spread. He felt annoyed at his jeans and at himself for freaking out over it. It wasn't the first time he was left a 'tip' by a john, but damn it, these were his favorite jeans. 

He decided it was hopeless. Alec pulled them back on, grimacing as that wet spot glided up over his thigh. He put on the rest of his clothes, ran the towel roughly over his hair until they rose in short spikes. He turned his face left and right as he considered his reflection. Paint-by-numbers genetics graced him with a smooth, hairless jaw. But, he ruefully thought as he rubbed a hand over his chin, a bit of scruff might have been interesting. He patted his smooth chest and wondered what it would feel like with hair.

The living room was still dark when Alec emerged from the bedroom. His brow furrowed when he could hear typing from that computer room. 

"You know," Alec drawled, "You could write in your diary later." His smirk faded when Cale turned towards him. The monitors' lights added an almost fluorescent glow to the bruising on his jaw and the purpling band around his throat. He nodded towards Cale, pointing to his own throat. "Uh...so uh...nothing serious?"

The Adam's Apple bobbed as Cale tried to swallow. Cale shrugged and faced his computer again. But before the fingers could rest on the keyboard, he hesitated.

"You're bleeding, you know."

Alec's hand flew up to the warm trickle on the back of his neck. Oh yeah. "Must have scrubbed too long. Exfoliating and stuff."

"That bar code—"

"I know," Alec snapped. He jerked his hand down.

Cale's hands pulled away from the keyboard.

Alec swallowed at the memory of seeing Cale, legs awkwardly folded and twisted under him, resigned eyes blurrily staring in front of him, ready to shoot. Again.

"Listen." Alec's throat worked. "You shouldn't be...if you need to go down there...you could..." He picked at the stain on his jeans. "You could look for me. I wouldn't...I'm not...I wouldn't...you know...Nothing you don't want, I mean." He stared at his boots for a moment before looking back up to see Cale studying him. It was almost comical the way his mouth dropped open a beat later as he blinked at him. 

"What? No! I wasn't..." Cale glanced away, his ears tipped pink. 

"Oh." Alec coughed. Relief loosened the iron in his spine. "What were you doing there past curfew then?" Alec prodded.

"Working," Cale muttered. He looked longing at his computer. 

"Hey, me too," Alec quipped, his face cracking when he smirked. It faded when Cale looked over. Alec shrugged and leaned on a wall, his arms folded in front of him. He swallowed the lump in his throat. He lifted his chin and met Cale's eyes.

"Not everyone can live it up in a penthouse," Alec said defiantly.

Cale cleared his throat. "I'm not judging."

Alec forced himself not to look away. "Yeah, right." The back of his throat tasted bitter.

"Not my place to." Cale's shoulders rose and fell. "The world's broken. We all have to do what we need to do."

"Exactly," Alec muttered under his breath. It didn't matter to him what Cale thought. 

"So what did _you_ need to do meeting two assholes in a dark alley at 200 hours?" Alec cocked his head. "Working on your next big story?"

There was a tiny quirk at the corner of Cale's lips. "Guess you been busy while you were away." A look flickered across Cale's face and his mouth flattened. "Find out anything interesting?"

"Only that you pissed off _a lot_ of people before the Pulse," Alec quipped.

The chuckle that escaped Cale looked like it surprised him as well as Alec.

"I guess you could say that." Cale pinched the bridge of his nose. With a twinge of regret, Alec remembered his glasses were somewhere in that alley. 

"I didn't see anything recent of yours."

A strange look crossed over Cale's face. "I write under a pseudonym now."

Alec waited for Cale to offer the name but when Cale didn't give it up, he scowled. Now that wasn't fair. How was he going to figure out who Cale was now?

"Working or not," Alec remarked, "Maybe going down there alone at night is not such a great idea."

"Oh?" Cale said tightly, "And why is that?" His hands flexed over his keyboard.

"Because there aren't enough bullets for all the assholes out there."

Cale stilled.

"Besides," Alec said brightly, "I couldn’t find any Mrs. or little Logan Cales so if you get killed, your stuff goes into probate. That would be a waste."

Cale's mouth curved briefly. "I can see how distraught that would make you."

"Distraught? Hell, I would be a sobbing mess at the waste," quipped Alec as he looked around the apartment dramatically.

"A waste?" Cale smiled weakly to himself. "I suppose you're right," he murmured to himself.

Baffled, Alec frowned at him. "Of course I'm right." He didn't know what the fuck Cale found so amusing. He cleared his throat loudly. "So seriously, if you need to go down there..." Alec waggled his eyebrows. "I'll even give you a discount." He purred, "It would be my pleasure."

Cale snorted and Alec's smirk broadened. And when Cale turned away from the computer to instead get more of that overpriced grape juice and peanut butter Alec whined for, it felt like a victory.

Huh.

Weird.

Cale was right about the barcode.

The scab peeled away when he touched it, leaving behind perfectly new and pink skin with mathematically straight thick and thin black lines stained starkly against it.

Damn it.

Alec's throat worked as he stared at the reflection of the hand mirror he held up to the back of his neck. He knew it happened. Hell, he'd been wearing the damn thing while playing hide-and-seek for years since Berrisford. But he thought he had more time. It was healing faster and faster, his designer genes adapting quicker than he could anticipate.

The hand that held the mirror with shook.

Alec wanted to throw it across the room but he couldn't. None of this was his. He stepped out of the bathroom and jerked his collar up high around his ears. It felt like the barcode was glowing nuclear through his layers of shirts and leather jacket. 

The room seemed to expand and yawn wide above him. He suddenly felt woozy, his skin too tight around his bones. 

He dropped to a crouch, rocking on the balls of his feet. He breathed. Just in and out, through clenched teeth. In and out. In and out.

_Snap out of it, 494. You're working._

Gradually, the sense of choking passed. Alec looked up and refocused on the room around him. He rose on wobbly knees and exhaled.

The little old lady hooked on Chinese hockey was gone for the day. In an apparent haste to leave, she had forgotten to turn her television off or set the alarm. Again.

Alec had noted what was worth taking in the apartment when he first dropped in. It was the same layout as Cale's apartment one floor below, but geez, she had a lot of crap. Especially those freaky porcelain dolls with the real human hair and blank eyes that seemed to follow him around. He'd check every one of them first to be sure there weren't any surveillance cameras in them. He crossed them off his To Steal list. No way was he sticking one of those freaky things in his satchel.

His skin itched. Alec kept finding his hand drifting up towards the back of his neck but there was no thick, pebbly skin to pick at. He grimaced and concentrated on the room of expensive crap.

In the end, Alec decided on some old looking silver spoons and an onyx statuette. He was tempted to take the platinum locket he found by a bedside end table, but he got a weird feeling looking at the smiling young faces inside. The photo had the same blue-silver eyes as the old lady’s. The pair looked happy. He took care to clean any fingerprints off and left the locket where it was. It was probably fake anyway.

The tinny sound of Men Wah Chung scoring a goal against the Italians sent the TV announcer into a verbal frenzy and made the living room sound more populated than it really was. Alec grinned. He liked Mandarin above all the other languages he had learned for infiltration. Their cursing always sounds worse than they really are. He glanced at the flat screen. He shifted his foot within his boot and felt the shrinking roll of money wiggling in his boot. Reconsidering lifting the TV, he decided the old lady could keep her hockey.

Alec walked backwards towards the window as he scanned the area, mentally back tracking his steps to ensure he left no trace. He nodded to himself. All clear. Still walking with his back towards the window, his stash heavy against his hip, Alec reached behind for his line, hooked it and tumbled out the window, letting his weight jerk the line taut before he cinched the line with a flick of the wrist. The bottom of his boots just reached the top of Cale's windows.

Finger stretched out to steady himself on the side of the building, Alec hung there, chewing his lower lip. He glanced over his shoulder at the sun. He canted his head to peek into the living room. No private porn show today. Maybe Cale was out? Alec's stomach twisted at the idea Cale might be out there again, doing whatever he was doing. When a shadow traveled across the carpet, Alec grinned, unwound the rest of his line and he lowered himself to the windows. He reached over and stopped.

Locked.

Lips pursed, Alec could see Cale's back towards him, typing in that stupid tiny laptop of his. There was an ear piece sticking out of his ear. He stared at Cale’s neck where his hairline stopped, the strands darker than the top, the back of his neck pale and unblemished. He could see the bony ridge of the spine as it disappeared into the rolled neckline of a new dark brown jersey sweatshirt. Damn, he liked the gray ones. They were clingy.

When it looked like the conversation ended, Alec cheerfully rapped on the window. He could see Cale's shoulders tense in surprise. Alec swung from his line towards more direct sunlight, letting it stretch his shadow into the living room in front of Cale. He waved so his shadow appeared on the opposite wall where Cale could see it. He then pretended to reach over to pat Cale's shadow's ass on the chair.

Cale’s shoulders relaxed but he didn't take the bait and turn around. Typing earnestly with one hand, Cale gestured "Go ahead" over his shoulder to Alec with the other.

Alec scowled. He rapped again. Another absentminded gesture. He indicated his displeasure with a gesture of his own and made very sure his shadow stretched over Cale to show it, before cheekily copping another shadowy feel.

When Cale still ignored him, Alec grumbled under his breath, disarmed the alarm and nudged the window open. He stuck his legs inside and sat on the sill.

"You know," Alec groused as Cale's chair finally turned around, "isn't it like some sort of polite, civilized thing to open when someone knoc—whoa!"

Alec flailed for a second the moment he got a good look at Cale. His legs, hooked over the sill, flexed. His quads bulged, his lower abs tightened and he sat up from the upside down position he'd abruptly found himself in. He hauled himself up, staggered to stand on the carpet and gripped one side of the sill, gulping. He grinned unabashed at Cale.

"All right?" Cale stared up at him, wide-eyed, his arms extended back on the chair's rims to propel him forward if necessary. 

"Yeah." Alec held up a hand, wordlessly pleading to give him a second. He dropped his hands to his knees. He lifted his eyes and studied Cale.

"What?"

"Looks better now." Alec gestured to his own face with a circling finger then pointed at Cale. The bruising was gone around Cale's pale throat. "Now you only look like you ran into a door instead of a tank." He straightened and stretched his arms high above his head.

Cale tentatively touched his own jaw as if he'd forgotten about it. "What just happened before?"

"I was blinded by your fugly glasses." Alec's head shot up and he grinned at Cale. "Not even I can make those look good."

Cale blinked, adjusted the thick black frames and rolled his eyes. 

"Or I could be weak with hunger." Alec added. He craned his neck and looked at the kitchen meaningfully. "Got any peanut butter left?"

Shaking his head, Cale wheeled away.

"You're not normally this early," Cale noted as he made a turn into the kitchen. He gestured vaguely to the fridge. 

"Thought I would get a little extra breaking and entering done." Alec rubbed a hand over his replaced and _clean_ jeans. "Blew my savings; there were some things I needed to replace."

"Chester Walker on the fourth floor just liquidated a jewelry warehouse. He helped under-report the net worth of what his company had repo-ed. I think he pocketed some things home as a bonus," Cale commented distractedly as he rolled an apple in his hands from the replenished bowl on the kitchen island.

Alec leaned against the couch. "Not that I'm complaining, but why are we sharing?"

Cale shrugged. He smoothed a thumb over the glossy red skin of the apple before setting it down. "He's a banker. Tripled the mortgage rate on that warehouse which forced it out of business. It was all the owner had to support his family." 

"Fourth floor, huh?" Alec tapped his chin as he gave it some thought. Climbing down wouldn't work. And hover drones could get that high. He would have to use the ventilation shafts. "Know what his schedule is like?" He smirked when Cale gave him a look over his glasses. Okay, maybe the glasses weren't completely unattractive. Cale's eyes were now smoky deep green, amplified by the thicker lenses. "Hey, doesn't hurt to ask." 

"Seriously though," Alec followed Cale into the kitchen. "What the hell with the magnify glasses?"

"These are my spares," Cale muttered.

"Yeah, as in 'spare us'." Alec poked his head into the fridge. He brightened. “Hey, pizza!” He pulled out the box. 

"Well, I was thinking of going back there to try and find—"

Alec almost gave himself whiplash. "What?" he said sharply. Did those glasses make the man loco? 

Cale shrugged. "I like that pair."

"Yeah, me too but I think they'll be more flattering on a live guy than a dead one," Alec snapped. He set the pizza box down. "It's been a few days. They probably got picked up and for sale on some guy's blanket by now."

"Most likely." Cale pushed up his replacement glasses again. 

Inexplicably relieved at Cale’s concession, Alec returned his attention to the box. He flipped the top back. He frowned.

"Hey, was there something wrong with it?" Alec tilted the box towards Cale. "You only ate a slice."

"Hm?" Cale glanced disinterestedly over at it. "No, it was fine when I ordered it. When it got here, I just—"

"Wasn't in the mood for it, yeah, where have I heard that before?" Alec sniffed at it suspiciously. Some people just didn't know how to spend money. Cheese pizza with broccoli? Oh well, no accounting for taste. 

"You know, you got a kitchen twice as big as the dump I live in. You might as well cook whatever you're in the mood for." Alec paused. "If you know how to cook, that is." Maybe Cale had a cook in a tiny maid's outfit. Alec hmmed. Maybe that's how Heather gets his porn inspiration: maids and pizza boy deliveries. 

"I can cook." Cale shrugged and idly picked up the half-eaten slice from the box. He promptly disposed of it.

"Yeah? Any good?"

"No one has died from it." Cale flipped the box shut and slid it back to Alec. "I used to make a good pasta."

Used to? Alec furrowed his brow. He slid the box back towards Cale, pursing his lips until Cale finally took a slice. He watched Cale took a bite first, chew then swallow. Okay, guess the pizza's safe after all. Alec folded a slice up into thirds. He took a huge bite and squinted towards Cale. 

"Pasta, huh? I would kill for pasta," Alec remarked. 

"It's not that hard to make." Cale took a few more bites of his slice, made a face and wheeled around Alec to the fridge for the wine. 

"Yeah? Maybe you can teach me?" Alec snagged the bottle as soon as Cale pulled it out from the fridge. He took a swig straight from it, which got him a glower that shouldn't look hot under those glasses. Alec continued slyly, "Or maybe you can cook for me." He leered at Cale. "I would be _very_ grateful."

Cale looked bemused, his mouth twitching like it wanted to do something more than frown finally. He cast his eyes towards ceiling. He tossed out his slice, took back the wine, set it on the kitchen island and went to find a glass. Alec huffed. Fine, take all the fun out of it.

"Cook for you?" Cale sounded amused, his voice for once lilted higher from its normal flat cadence. "Now why would I want to do that?" Pulling open the lower cabinet, he fished out a fancy beveled stemware. Yeesh, can't Cale drink out of a normal glass like everyone else?

"Come on," Alec wheedled, trying to get his third Logan Cale eye roll. He found it oddly sexy. "I'll even help out."

It wasn't an eye roll, but when Cale chuckled faintly, Alec gave himself a point anyway. "Help? You?"

"Yup," Alec quipped. "I can boil the water!"

The glass stem shattered in Cale's grip.

"Shit, what kind of crap glass did you buy?" Alec exclaimed as he snatched a dish rag and tossed it to Cale. Cale stared at his bleeding palm. "Where was that from? USA? Don't you have enough money to buy stuff made in Taiwan or something? You know, the good stuff?" 

Alec studied the floor around him and toed the glass together into a bloody pile and picked it all up with a towel by the sink. He tossed the whole thing, towel and all, in the garbage. Hell, Cale could afford another dishrag. 

"I think that's everything." When Alec looked up, Cale was flexing his hand, still appearing a little dazed. "How bad is it?"

Cale started and blinked up at Alec. He pulled the hand to his lap. "It's...it's fine. It was just the stem..."

"What the hell was that all about?" Alec gestured towards the shards of glass in the waste basket. "Look, I was only kidding about you cooking for m—"

"No, no." Cale looked pained but Alec suspected it wasn't because of his hand. "No. It's just that...it's funny. A friend of mine once said the exact same thing to me."

Huh? Alec reviewed their conversation but nothing stood out. What was so funny? People didn't break glasses if it's funny.

"Okay," Alec said slowly, still not connecting the dots.

Cale screwed up his face that Alec guessed was supposed to be a smile. "I...better..." He nodded towards his bedroom.

Alec stared at the top of his head. "You need help with that? Maybe you should check it out here. Better light."

Cale wordlessly shook his head. He fumbled for the axle gears and rolled towards his bedroom. He nodded jerkily when Alec got the door for him. 

Alec stood by the shut door, listening to Cale moving around in the bedroom. He frowned to himself, reviewing in his head but he still got nothing. He dropped to the carpet and sat there cross-legged, listening to the tinkle of glass being picked out, the snap of sticky bandages being unfurled. But after a while, it got quiet. He waited a few minutes before knocking the door with a knuckle.

"Yeah?" Cale rasped from inside.

Alec cleared his throat. "You're uh, not bleeding out in there, are you?" 

Cale made a noise supposed to be a laugh. "Look, I'm feeling a little tired so I'm just gonna..." he trailed off.

Alec glanced out at the window, at the sun begrudgingly sinking behind a building in a wake of reds and oranges. "Yeah sure. I gotta jet anyway." He laughed awkwardly. "Back to work." He paused and added, "Things to steal and stuff."

"Okay." Cale fell silent. Alec unwound out of his cross-leg position when Cale cleared his throat.

"You know your barcode..."

"Yeah...I know." Alec rubbed his neck. He grimaced. "Guess I better stick with stealing naked pottery at night and lay low during the day."

"Sounds like a plan." 

Alec fidgeted when the silence stretched. "Hey..." he began. His eyes slid away. He took a deep breath. 

"Look, whatever it was I said before...Sorry. Okay?"

"It's not you, Dean." It sounded like Cale was right at the door. "I'm just...it's been a long day. I'm a little tired."

Maybe if Cale didn't roam around the city past curfew, he wouldn't be so tired. Alec refrained from pointing that out though. He grunted. But when the silence hung between them too long again, Alec coughed.

"Dude, you sure you're not bleeding out in there? Cause that's a waste. Seattle General is forking out two hundred bucks for a nice bag of red..."

Cale chuckled, strained. "Not bleeding out, Dean."

Alec stared at the wood grain. He blinked when he realized he's been rubbing a spot where he thought Cale's head was.

"Gotta bounce. Work. Heigh ho, heigh ho." Alec dropped his hand.

"Watch yourself."

Alec scoffed. "Don't I always? I'll see you later, okay?" He jerked. What the hell made him say that?

"Oh...okay...yeah...Uh, later," Cale sounded startled. "Do you want the rest of the pizza?"

"You sure?"

The shrug was audible in Cale's voice. "Might as well."

Alec rocked on his heels. "Okay. Thanks." He stared at the windows. "I...ah...better get going then."

Cale grunted.

Alec dug the toe of his boot deep into the carpet. "Alright, remember, if you do spring a leak, let me know and we can hop to General and collect two hundred."

There was a snort by the door. 

A spot in his chest twinge but he wasn't sure why. Alec swallowed. "Yeah. Later. Uh. Thanks for the pizza." He didn't move though, head cocked towards the door. He heard the bed creak as Cale transferred over. When the typing started, Alec pulled away with a perplexed frown to the door.

Alec put the pizza box back in the fridge and shimmied out the window. He couldn’t carry it while rappelling anyway.


	4. Second (or was it third) Chances

"...195...196...197..."

His left arm ached, finally feeling the burn of the quick snap and lift of one-arm pushups. Alec ignored the pain. He kept his right arm firmly tucked behind him as he touched the roof with his nose before propelling himself back up.

On the streets below, police sirens went on and on as they had for the past three days ever since the alert went out for a suspect that looked just like him with a very distinctive and damning tattoo on the back of his neck. Alec had been uncharacteristically sloppy and a witness had got a better look of him.

Alec's lips curled back and he took the next thirty reps in a blur. His right arm whipped down when his left elbow buckled and he finished the rest, counting down between his teeth.

"...4...3...2...1!"

Alec dropped unceremoniously to the roof. He breathed harshly through his nose before flipping himself on his back.

_Stupid, 494. Way stupid._

His raw knuckles stung as sweat dribbled down to remind him just how much of a brain fart he had the past few days. Alec lay there, glowering at the sun (stupid sun), at the tear on his jeans (stupid gun) and finally on the satchel he'd left in a heap by his rigging lines. Stupid glas—

Alec calmed. He grimaced at himself as he took inventory of his body again. Nothing led to a blood trail and unless the police cared to swab out two _living_ assholes, no one was going to have a trace of an X-5 to remember him by. He should have left well enough alone though, but the hunt, the fight, made sense as he dove right into it. Something was finally making sense. A punch breaks bone, money buy things, a hoverdrone equals to capture; simple rules to live by.

Sitting up, Alec rested his arms on his knees and surveyed the rooftop. The skylight that led two levels down, bypassing Chinese hockey lady's unit to Cale's penthouse glinted like a gem in the high noon sun. If his estimations were correct, it would drop him into the hallway by the front door and the guest room. 

The rigging lines lay coiled and unattached by his feet. Going down the side of the building when maybe a third of Seattle's laughable finest is out looking for you was not a good strategic move right now. 

Alec peered through the skylight but for the past five minutes, there was no activity. He didn't like the idea Cale might be out there again, but at least it meant maybe he could crash in there until Cale returns. 

Checking over his shoulder towards the thankfully empty sky, he dismantled the skylight frame. He frowned to himself at how easy it was: no alarm to disarm, too high to make a sound for anyone to notice someone dropping in. Not much of a challenge with this entry point.

Snaking the line down, Alec quietly thread it through the narrow opening. The line curled its tail on the floor like a snake. Alec wiggled his legs inside, worked his torso in before he was completely through. Guess that's why no one was concerned about the skylight. You would have to be an anorexic toothpick or an X-5 contortionist to fit through.

Quietly, Alec slid down the line. He froze when he landed on the floor and the low, rasping timbre reached his ears.

"...let me know if you hear anything else, Matt. I'm going out to try one more time. What? No, just me. No. Heard nothing. Blin—he hasn't…yeah, I know. I'll watch myself. Okay. Bye."

Shit! Cale was actually here.

Before Alec could get back up on the line, the sticky tread on hardwood squeaked to a halt.

They stared at each other, speechless.

"Hey," Alec managed after a few seconds. He waved weakly at his line. "Been a few days. Thought I would...drop by...say 'Hey'." He shoved his hands in his pockets. Facing Lydecker felt warm and fuzzier than standing in front of an obviously pissed off Logan Cale. "So uh...hey."

"Just what did you think you were doing for the past three days?" Cale exploded.

Baffled, Alec uttered a "What?" but Cale went right over him. Alec didn’t know why Cale was so upset.

"Two break-ins, three assault and batteries, vandalism in a _police station_ , fighting in the South Market alleys, two men in the IC—how did you even find them in the first place?" Cale's chest heaved, finally out of breath.

"Street safety cams caught their getaway car." Alec shrugged. He flicked a glance at the worn jeans and slate gray barn jacket. Inside, Cale wore a brown button down shirt under a cream pullover, exposing his throat and collarbone. "Going out?"

Cale's mouth set in a grim line, those damn thick rimmed glasses darkening the smudges under the glowering eyes. "I _was_."

Alec frowned. "I don't know if you heard, but there's a hot guy apparently rampaging out in streets of Seattle."

"Yes, I know," Cale ground out, glaring at Alec accusingly

His eyes zipped up and down Cale again, this time noticing the shoulder holster—the _double_ holster—and the butt ends of a Glock and a Pelican .37. Whoa, what country was Cale invading and why wasn't he invite—Wait. "Oh."

Without another word, Cale gripped his axle wheels tightly and abruptly turned about face. 

Staring puzzled at Cale’s back as he rolled away, Alec recovered. He tugged loose his line, grabbed his satchel and followed. To his surprise, Cale didn't beat a retreat into his bedroom.

Cale halted in the kitchen. He wheeled sharply around to Alec. 

"What happened to laying low?" Cale ground out.

Alec shrugged. "I was."

"Breaking into a police station and hacking into their safety cams was not laying low," Cale said tightly. "News has security footage of you."

Damn, he thought he disabled all of the cameras. Alec watched Cale go around the kitchen island again. "Uh...did they get my good side?"

"They didn't get a clear look of your barcode if that's what you're wondering." Stopping again, Cale shot him a look past the island. His gaze darkened to a deep hue of a jade he once swiped, anger flushed his cheeks. Absently, Alec thought he looked kinda hot. Pissed off Logan Cale stirred something hot deep in his gut. 

_Whoa, focus, 494._

"But they have your description circulated throughout this sector." Cale gestured towards his screen in the living room. "They've been broadcasting since that night." 

His throat tightened. Alec couldn't swallow. He rubbed the back of his neck. "Oh."

"You know with that barcode, if that ever gets filmed anywhere..."

"I know!" Alec grated out.

"If the wrong people see—"

"I said I know!" Alec burst out shouting. He threw his arms up. "I'm very careful but this fucking..." He clawed at the back of his neck, his nails digging into skin. He could feel it growing, spreading like a high tech cancer. "This thing healed back faster before I could do anything about it! I walk into any tattoo place all healed up, they see it and that's it!" He stood there, on the other side of the island, feeling like he could flip it off its housing. "But that costs money, a shit bucket of money but you wouldn't know anything about that, would ya, bored rich guy sitting around, pretending to know everything about me!"

Silence hung between them.

Alec thumped a fist on the counter.

"You're bleeding," Cale suddenly said, subdued.

Narrow eyes snapped to his own hand and belatedly noted the strips of skin clinging to his stained nails. His gaze drifted to Cale's hand. "You too." Memory filtered in as he took in the bandaged wrapped hand curled around the wheel. 

Cale shrugged. He tested his hand and dropped it onto his lap. "Not really supposed to use this hand yet. But it'll heal up without a mark."

Alec looked away, stung. "Lucky you."

Cale said nothing, but behind him, Alec heard the sucking sound of a tread coming up behind him. 

"Go sit on the couch." Cale went past him and into the bedroom. "Turn around and face the back."

"Uh...okay." Frowning, Alec went over and gingerly sat down. He tracked Cale coming out of the bedroom, a first aid kit on his lap. Cale paused and drew the blinds down on each window. 

When the closed blinds filled the living room in slotted shadows, Alec relaxed. He slumped before wiggling around to sit cross-legged. He dropped his chin on top of the couch back. He sensed Cale come around to sit him.

Alec leaned forward, his hand digging into the armrest. "What are you planning on doing?"

"I know you guys can be flexible," Cale said quietly, "But I think your neck will still be a reach."

"And how do you know we're flexible?" Alec joked weakly as he leaned forward again. He started when he felt the warmth of fingertips over his barcode.

"I'm only putting ointment on," Cale said reassuringly.

Alec grunted. He gripped his knees tightly to keep them from bouncing when he felt the fuzzy cotton swab gingerly painting across the barcode, not in an up/down direction, for which Alec felt stupidly grateful for.

When one spot stung, Alec flinched. He heard a murmured apology behind him, near his ear and Alec settled again. After a long moment, he tensed when he heard a tearing sound until Cale muttered, "Band-Aid."

The cool patch settled on his neck like a new skin, feeling heavy and slightly plastic. The adhesive edges clung to his skin. When Alec straightened and turned back around in the couch, the back of his skin felt muffled, smothered, buried.

The feet within his boots uncurled. Alec exhaled slowly.

"Thanks," Alec mumbled.

The first aid kit box snapped shut. Cale reentered the bedroom without another word. 

Alec stared hard at the open door, waiting for that typing to begin again. Instead, Cale returned. He stopped in front of Alec.

"Your hand?" Alec nodded towards the spotted bandage on Cale's hand. 

"It's fine." Green eyes looked almost black in the dark as they considered Alec. "Why?"

"Why?" Alec carefully touched the patch on his neck. He shrugged. "There was only so much to steal." 

"Jewelry at Walker wasn't enough?" 

The grin he gave stretched weirdly on the corners of his mouth. "Saving it for a rainy day." 

Cale's eyes crinkled fractionally at the corners. "Rains almost every day here."

"A _really_ rainy day." Alec shot Cale a cheeky grin. He then remembered his satchel. He held up a hand. "Stay right there, all right?"

Cale's brow furrowed. "Okay," he said slowly, eyes following Alec as he retrieved his bag and rummaged through it.

When Alec's fingers closed around the fragile item wrapped in a torn shirt, he glanced up again. "Close your eyes."

"Why?" Cale asked warily.

Alec rolled his eyes. "Because I want to stick my tongue down your throat. Will you just close your eyes?"

"Oh," Cale said lightly, "In that case."

Eyes slid shut, dark lashes against the curve of his cheekbones. Even with the shadows under his eyes, the fading bruise healing on his jaw, the tilt of the face that stretched a bare throat towards Alec felt like Cale was an offering.

Alec's mouth went dry. He rubbed a damp palm up and down his thigh. "Okay..." He cleared his throat, leaned over. He reached, stopped, sucked in his breath and reached out again.

Cale fidgeted when he felt Alec's fingers skimming his face. "What are you doing?"

"Told you."

Cale's chuckle was strangled. "You're kidding, right?"

"Nope." Alec gingerly slipped off the heavy frames. The looped earpiece caught briefly on the curve of Cale's ear.

"Now what are you doing?"

"Climbing onto your lap," Alec quipped. He smirked as Cale chuckled again, an octave higher this time. Alec couldn't help it; he brushed his thumbs down Cale's smooth jaw. The skin felt supple warm as his thumbs traced the profile of his jawline. His digits skimmed the skin under the eyes; it felt thin, soft. 

Alec stroked the dark smudges there. How long were they there, he mused. Who put them there?

Cale shifted uneasily, his brow furrowing.

"You shaved," Alec whispered. He traced the outline of a cheekbone; he felt only a whisper of stubble, the silk of skin warm against his fingertips.

Alec watched in fascination as Cale’s Adam's apple bobbed as if in silent answer. Cale said nothing though.

Cale's lower lip was lush under the sweep of his thumb. Cale twitched but held still when Alec murmured, "Keep them closed." 

Alec traced the bottom of Cale's lip, brushed across it again. He noted the white crinkles at the corners.

"You should drink more water," Alec said as he pressed a thumb at one corner. "You're getting dehydrated."

"…Dean…" Cale sounded strained. A bead of sweat pearled by his right eye, like a tear. Alec lifted a hand up to it to trace its path as it trickled down. He followed its descent, leaning forward, zeroing in on the glistening trail it left behind. It smelled faintly salty, faintly musky and—

Cale fidgeted. "What are you doing?"

His hand jerked back, His fingers oddly felt bereft. 

Alec shook out of his reverie. "Uh…hold up."

The thin frames glinted when Alec unfolded its wrapping. He slid the wire rims over Cale's face.

Cale's eyes flew open. He looked at Alec weirdly and reached up to touch the glasses. He took them off and considered them. He slipped them back on, blinked owlishly through them. He looked at Alec. And frowned.

"Don't tell me that's why you were out there." Cale's jaw set. 

Alec's shoulders rose briefly. "I came across these while I was out." He smirked. "And I was getting sick and tired of those uglies squatting on your cute face."

For some reason, Cale's gaze hooded. He sighed. "That was a big risk to take." He squeezed the wheelchair rails. He shook his head. "Don’t do that again." Abruptly, he jerked his chair around and headed towards the bedroom.

"You're welcome," Alec shot back at the rigid shoulders. He wondered why Cale was upset.

The wheelchair stilled. 

"You can crash in the guest room tonight," Cale said, not turning around. "The police are going to give up their search tomorrow."

Huh? Alec frowned. "What are you talking about?"

"It should be safe to go out tomorrow night," Cale said by way of explanation. He continued into the bedroom, pausing in the doorway. "Thanks for the glasses," he said heavily, "But you shouldn't have risked it."

The bedroom door closed.

Alec stared hard at the blood drops on the floor, smeared in a zigzag pattern from where a tread rolled over it.

"Ingrate," Alec muttered darkly. He sat there in a slump on the couch, listening to the laptop coming back to life inside. He sat there until the sound grated him and he stomped into the guest room in the opposite side of the apartment.

 

\---

 

_His lungs burned._

_As the fire traveled up the center of his chest and stoked in the base of his throat, he flinched. An air bubble escaped his mouth and unbidden, his eyes tracked it floating up, higher and higher until it shattered at the surface above him in the face of the stoic men holding their stopwatches. He shouldn't have looked. Another bubble escaped and now his body followed, almost weightless, underwater yet burning._

_Like the bubble, his hold shattered and he gasped for air. Loudly. That was two demerits, 494. He waded in the pool, vaguely aware that he was gulping for air, acutely aware the others were still down below._

_Failure. One more demerit, 494._

_"How long?"_

_"Four minutes, four seconds. Ten percent improvement."_

_"Just ten." Resolute and unforgiving, the gaze swept over him, narrowing at the sounds of his breath._

_"Again."_

_A hand clamped over his shaven head and pushed. He sank without a struggle because orders were orders. It was only ten percent._

_As his hearing muffled, watery weight building up pressure in his ear drums, 475 and 434 next to him voluntarily drowned..._

__He woke unsure of where he was. .

Walls. Lacquered walls: breakable with fifty-five pounds of force, Windows: two, Door: beveled frosted glass, shattering it would make a noise. Bed: not his.

When he rolled and landed by the side of the bed in a low crouch, the dagger in his hand, Alec remembered.

Penthouse. Guest room. Logan Cale.

Alec straightened, blade still in hand.

What woke him?

Alec peeled back the electrical tape from his watch and squinted, easily picking out the time without turning on the lamp. He slept three hours. Whoa. _Great going, Rip Van Winkle._ He absently tucked his blade back into his boot. He didn't bother taking them off before hitting the rack, as nice as a rack it was. All his wealth was squirreled away in his boots so he made sure to keep them close. 

Straining to listen past the walls, Alec scanned for what it was that had roused him from a surprisingly deep sleep. He could hear snatches of words. Wisps of sentences in a low, rolling rumble that he knew was Cale's. No typing though. Just words. He tensed but even with his ear to a wall, all he heard was Cale's voice. Only it was muffled, distorted, like someone was smothering Cale with a pillow, yet the guy kept on talking.

Alec frowned.

_"...not adjust...60 seconds...cannot be traced...only free voice..."_

Maybe Heather's dubbing porn?

Alec splayed a hand to the door and quietly opened it.

Standing out in the hallway, there wasn't much improvement.

_"...power to...must be stopped...abuse...in order to..."_

Alec tugged at his ears, discomfited by the sensation of pressure filling his ear canals. His chest seized, as if to hold his breath. He'd never been able to pull off anything longer than five minutes, thirteen seconds. 

Around the corner, into the hallway that led to the living room and bedroom, Alec could see a wavering shadow in the computer area. All the wall partitions and doors were shut, but they shouldn't be enough to block out sound. He could see a blurry Cale, sitting a foot away from his desk, still talking, low, steady, yet in and out like from he was afar, not just two meters away. 

Suddenly, Cale stopped talking. Alec watched him drew up and reach down by the desk. There was a click. Alec violently shook his head. His hearing flared, louder as if to make up for its shortcomings before. Cale reached up to a shelf on his desk and something else clicked and _ow_ , now both his ears pounded.

Alec tapped on one ear then the next. He dry swallowed and the pressure on his ears returned. He glowered at the closed off computer space as he edged closer for a better look. What the hell?

With his hearing reset, Alec could hear Cale better now as he rolled closer to his desk, typing away as soon as he can reach his keyboard. The tiny clicking ate away at the silence and put Alec's teeth on edge. But then, Cale stopped. He leaned back into his wheelchair with a sigh. He pulled down his glasses, pinched his nose and sat there.

Minutes later, there was a rhythmic clatter, like teeth rattling in a tin cup. The desk to Cale's left shook, its multiple monitors tittering dangerously overhead. Alec canted his head. He could make out Cale, fidgeting in his chair, a slight jerk to his left and back. Eleven o'clock, twelve o'clock, eleven o'clock, twelve; twisting and stopping in time with the strange beat.

When Alec realized it was Cale making the noise, slamming his legs to the side of his desk, he found himself right there, rapping on the glass door.

The sound stopped.

Alec noted with approval the sound of a gun safety being thumbed off. Then again, that should have been done when Alec was five meters away. _One demerit, Cale._

"Dean?"

"Yeah." 

"Did I wake you?" 

Alec pressed a hand to the glass. When he didn't hear otherwise, he slid the glass partition to the right, opening up the space again.

"Nah," Alec said breezily, "My stomach woke me." He stopped at the sight of the pullover that hugged Cale's torso, the worn, fraying jeans under a fuzzy navy blanket. "Damn."

"What?" 

"You're dressed." Alec grinned cheekily when Cale's eyebrows disappeared under the flop of bangs Cale never seemed to bother to tame. Alec shrugged. "Thought you be naked doing your porn thing."

"My _porn_ thing?" Cale repeated. He folded back down the sleeves of his gray pullover, almost covering the new gauze wrapped crisscross his palm. He pushed away from his desk with his hands, neatly turning to veer around Alec. "I have a porn thing?" Alec couldn’t tell if Cale was amused or insulted.

Alec scrutinized the desk of monitors. He hovered his hand over them. Warm. He poked at the recognizable boxy speakers on the top shelf. "What else could you be doing in here with a digital camera, a sound editor board and..." Alec grunted, impressed, "Four military strength noise cancelling generators?" He slowly did a 180 and whistled. "Make that six. I haven't seen this much tech since Manti—" He snapped his mouth shut. 

The look Cale gave him, deliberately blank, made Alec bristled.

"What?" he snapped, regretting it when Cale turned back and continued his way to the kitchen.

"You said you were hungry?" Cale pulled open the fridge to examine its contents. "Did you miss dinner?" he murmured to himself. He checked his watch. He blinked. "I guess you did." Chagrin flitted across his face. "Sorry. Not much of a host."

"No shit," Alec grumbled. He sidled up from behind Cale and stuck his head in the space between him and the door. Alec glowered at the contents. 

"What kind of rich pad is it that you only have eggs and some peanut butter and..." Alec brushed shoulders with Cale as he wiggled closer to fish out the carton in the back. He peeled the flaps back and gave it a cautious sniff. 

"Chicken chow fun?" Alec shook the full carton. "What? You weren't in the mood for this, too?" When Cale didn't answer, Alec drew back to look at him. "Are you ever in the mood for anything..." he trailed off when he realized they were barely inches from each other.

The rim of Cale's glasses caught the light coming from the fridge and reflected off the swirl of brown and green that darkened at Alec's proximity. Alec was close enough to see a faded scar at the corner of Cale's left eye, a nick that was hidden in view under Cale's bangs, an acne scar at the corner of his mouth. 

The memory of how warm Cale's skin was under his thumbs made his fingers flex around the carton. He remembered the stretch of skin over cheekbones, the contrast of smooth and stubble just short of appearing that made his palms itch.

Alec's eyes drifted to Cale's mouth, to that lower lip he knew would flush pink and swollen if he nibbled it. He found himself leaning forward, drawn by the faint aroma of coffee Cale must have drank minutes before. The wheelchair creaked as Cale leaned in as well.

Then, there was a flicker across Cale's face. His eyes slid away. Alec blinked, disconcerted at the loss of connection. 

"You can heat that up if you want," Cale said as he cleared his throat repeatedly. He grabbed an apple off the fruit bowl. He rolled around to the other side of the island. "There's a microwave behind you."

Alec gave himself a mental shake. "Sounds good. Thanks." He dumped the food in a plate and stuck it on the microwave. At its obedient chime, his head cleared further. He gave the apple in Cale's hand a skeptical frown. "Want to share?"

A wordless headshake. Cale retrieved a knife and began cutting slices of apple. 

Alec rolled his eyes. "You could just bite that like the rest of us." He retrieved the warmed food, catching the fork Cale slid across the island and began wolfing the meal down.

"And you could just chew that like the rest of us," Cale returned, eyeing Alec's food like it might spring up and attack him. Alec ignored him.

"It's good," Alec mumbled between bites. He watched Cale eat another slice of apple slowly as if he was eating for politeness' sake. "You sure you don't want?"

"I don't think I'd survive coming between the two of you," Cale said wryly.

"You should have some," Alec insisted. He forked a steaming mound of chow fun and gestured towards Cale with it. He smirked when Cale gave him a sour look. "It won't bite." His smirk became wolfish. " _I_ might, but this won't." He hopped on the island, twirling his fork closer towards Cale. He gave up when Cale just pointedly ate another apple slice. Alec shrugged.

"Fine, but I'm telling you; that bony ass look doesn't do it for most people these days." Alec chewed loudly as he surveyed the kitchen. "What's the point of having a kitchen if you're not going to use it?" He himself was still trying to buy a hot plate that didn't double as an IED. 

The quiet crunch was Alec's only answer so he just finished his food, have his fill until his stomach stopped turning itself inside out. With a burp, he set the plate aside. 

"How's your neck?"

Alec's hand flew up to the gauze. "Scabbing a little. Think I'll be able to check out the tattoo parlors in Chinatown, see what they can do with this." He pulled his hand down before he could touch it. "How's your hand?"

"Still works." Cale held up his hand to show the clean bandage. "The room okay?" 

"It's great." Alec rocked a hand from side to side. "Just not used to sleeping on a real bed." He weaved his hands and held them up high above his head, stretching until his spine did a series of firecracker pops. Oh yeah. Better. Alec indicated towards the ceiling with his chin. "Still, beats camping out on the roof."

"Well, maybe if you weren't so busy..." Cale searched for the right word, which Alec thought was funny him being a writer and all.

"Rampaging? Pillaging?" Alec supplied helpfully. He got a glower for his efforts. Alec held up his hands in surrender. "Okay, I admit, it was not one of my best moves. Can we just leave it at that?"

Cale sighed. "So long it doesn't happen again."

"What are you, my CO?" Alec joked but knew it fell flat judging Cale's pinched expression. 

"No, I'm not Lydecker," Cale said tightly.

Okay, so Logan Cale knows about Lydecker as well, Alec noted uneasily. _Barcodes, metabolism, militaristic assholes. Check._

"No," Alec drawled as he watched Cale's face. "I heard he's taller. Less scruffy? A little on the paunchy side?" He noted Cale almost eye rolled at the description. So he's met Lydecker, too.

Cale tossed out the rest of his apple. 

"You know that's not what he looks like and now you confirmed I know too." Cale met Alec's gaze unflinching. "Anything else?"

Alec shrugged. "Just curious. Something to pass the time." He glanced around him. "This isn't exactly a kicking place."

"It should be fine to leave tomorrow." Cale paused. "I mean later." He veered for the computer room. "You should get some sleep."

"Don't sleep much," Alec quipped. "Must be all that expensive Manticore metabolism in me."

"I forgot about that."

Alec narrowed his eyes. "Anything else you might have _forgotten_ to tell me?"

The inscrutable, "I'm your scruffy messiah" look on Cale was wearing thin. But then it morphed to a sheepish grimace.

"Not really." Cale tapped his fingers on his desk. "You don't sleep much, but try to rest. Relax."

Alec wondered what that was like. Plus, he wondered if _Cale_ knew either. He swung his legs as he sat on the island. He eyed the kitchen, the dark living room and Cale.

"So what are you doing up this late anyway?" Alec called after him.

"Working," Cale replied cryptically.

"On what?"

"On a way to fix a broken world." Cale didn't look up.

"You're worse than a fortune cookie," Alec complained. He hopped off the island and followed Cale into the area. He studied all the dull, inactive monitors and the keyboard. "Is it the next great Logan Cale news at eleven article?" He poked at the closest monitor. "Great American novel?"

Cale rolled back to look up at him.

Alec grinned. "Quid Pro Quo," he said. He gestured towards his neck. "Or Tit for Tat."

"I really don't know that much about Manticore," Cale said seriously of course. When wasn’t Cale serious, Alec wondered. "There wasn't much."

"You knew about the barcode," Alec reminded him. "You knew it never goes away."

"Only because someone I knew..." Cale hedged. "Was in your same situation."

"An X-5."

"Yes."

Alec swallowed. There was only one other group he knew could be out there. He sat on the edge of the desk. "Bar code and everything?"

"Even the penchant for cat burglary."

Throat and chest tight, Alec could barely force the words out. "Still around?"

Cale's eyes clouded over. "No."

"Dead? Manticore, past his expiration date or did he off himself?" 

Cale's throat worked. His voice flattened when he finally spoke in a false bright voice.

"Canada."

Alec blinked. "Huh?"

"Went to Canada. Found family and—"

"X-5's don't have families," Alec interrupted, darkening. "We're DNA soup in a test tube. We don't come from families."

"Surrogate mothers," Cale reminded him.

"Uterus donors," Alec corrected. He straightened from the desk, jaw flexing. His neck itched as the silence between them lengthened. He finally had to say something. "So how you ended up meeting an X-5? One of your news articles?"

"Tried to steal my stuff," Cale said dryly.

"Seriously?" Alec barked out a laugh. "That's what you get for being one of the elite," he retorted. "The vases?"

"French statuette of Basket."

Not everyone knew how to appreciate art. Alec scoffed. "I call dibs then."

"You're calling dibs to steal my Baroque vases?" Cale's voice deepened with amusement. "I thought you couldn't get a buyer for pornographic lesbian pottery?"

"There'll _always_ be a buyer for those." Alec folded his arms. "So you became buddies with an X-5 trying to steal your stuff?"

"I must have 'Please rob me' tattooed on my forehead," Cale muttered. He started guiltily. "Sorry."

There must have been something wrong with the chow fun after all because Alec could taste the sourness in the back of his mouth. "Better than on the back of your neck," he joked feebly. Cale squirmed, watching Alec with an intensity that was making _Alec_ squirm. 

Alec smirked and blatantly leered at Cale up and down. "If it's tattooed on your ass though..."

Cale's shoulders relaxed. "You have an unhealthy obsession with that particularly body part of mine that you've never seen," he commented.

"Who said I haven't seen it? When you were doing those push-ups last..." Alec cleared his throat when Cale's eyes looked away. "Anyway," he said louder. "Canada, huh?" Alec stared out of the computer area, beyond the living room to the windows. He tried to imagine what it must be like without hover drones, sector police and seedy, desperate alleys.

"Once you cross into Canada, Manticore can't touch you."

"Yeah, you don't know that for sure," muttered Alec. 

"They don't have the pull like they do here. They—"

" _They_..." Alec ground out. "You seem pretty sure about what _they_ are thinking. What else do you know about them?"

Cale sagged. "Not much really." He absently ran his hands up and down his legs. "I know they have a long reach. I know they're still looking for all the X-5s."

"You know more than I do then," Alec muttered.

Cale pulled back abruptly and left Alec frowning alone in the computer area. He came back a beat later with a small stack of folders on his lap.

"Here." Cale set them down on between them. The stack was about four inches thick. "Everything I did found out about them, the people involved, the surrogates..."

Alec stared at the folders by his hip. He didn't move to take them. "Why are you giving me all this?"

Cale shrugged.

"What the hell kind of answer is that?" Alec tentatively peeled back the corner of the top folder. He caught a glimpse of a photo, a full squadron staring expressionlessly back at the camera, blank faced clones in bleak jumpsuits. The corner of his eye twitched. He slapped his palm over the folders. "Your friend was one of those twelve who escaped? Am I right?" At Cale's questioning look, Alec grimaced. "We heard rumors about them, how they went AWOL. Things in Manticore didn't get better for the rest of us after they escaped." He scowled. 

"Manticore never stopped looking for them." Cale rubbed his fingers to the bottom of his keyboard, his eyes distant. "They came close to finding them. Many times."

"You helped them leave?" Alec wondered how much did that cost and what Cale got out of it.

Cale laughed strangely. "They didn't need my help."

Alec watched Cale gripping his thighs, eyes unseeing. A chill rippled down his spine.

"Manticore..." Alec croaked, "Manticore didn't do that to you, did they?" He felt lightheaded when Cale shook his head. 

"Go ahead and take a look," Cale urged. "There may be something you can use." He shook his head when Alec hesitated. "I don't really need them anymore."

"Just going to stick with your porn, huh?" Alec joked, earning a strained laugh.

"Sure." Cale tucked himself closer to his desk. "Why don't you grab a few more hours?"

"What about you?"

"Still have work to do." Cale offered Alec a tired smile that didn't reach his eyes completely. "More porn."

Alec snickered although it took effort to do so. "Okay, Heather. Try and keep the moaning and groaning to a minimum. If you need a co-star..."

"Thank you but no thank you," Cale said firmly.

"Seriously, you know how the saying goes it takes two to tango?" Alec leered as he slid off the edge of the desk. "I don't think it means your left hand and your right."

"Good night, Dean."

It felt all right to walk away when Alec spied the upturned corners of Cale's lips. He chuckled out a "Night", took the files and headed back to the guest room.

Alec couldn't fall back to sleep though. He ended up reading and memorizing the collected Manticore articles and scientists' bios. In the background, he could hear Cale's typing and was heartened not to hear the disturbing beat of his legs banging into his desk again.

As soon as the sun rose, Alec peeked out to find himself alone. Cale had gone out. There were apples and a new jar of peanut butter on the counter and the television left on to reports of Seattle police's search over.

Their suspect was apparently sighted a hundred miles away.

 

\---

 

Like most residents of Seattle, Alec hated the brownouts.

As Alec leaned on the raised ledge on his patch of roof, he eyed the streets below him with a frown on his face. Brownouts meant fewer people were out (which was bad for business for everybody) and the Seattle PD sending out hordes of their Kevlar, helmet armed minions out into the dusky hellholes to do their policing. 

It also meant people stayed indoors which meant a little breaking and entering on the sly was out of the question.

Dammit.

Alec picked at the square patch on his neck, already peeling at the corners. Bandages weren't meant to stay on for so many days and at three, it barely hung on and now at five, Alec had to keep checking it after a strong breeze. 

Old man Wei in Chinatown had told him six grand to cut into the tattoo. The hunched over proprietor promised him the cutting would be deep and long lasting. Of course, the wizened, squinty eyed coot smirked at him and then added Alec could come in dressed or not for it. Yeah, like Alec found pain and blood-letting a turn on. No one can pay him enough for that. He'll stick to the Fifties and Hundreds, thank you very much. But it was going to take a lot of alleys and paranoid, horny men to make that kind of cash.

Unless…

The business card Alec twirled in his hand was crumpled, clearly been passed along and ( _ew_ ) chewed on many times by the time he came across it. It was just a cellphone number; impressive as the few remaining telecommunications companies that survived the Pulse charged a fortune for a rented number. The name was penciled in, erased and penciled in again. 

Seven grand in three days. All he needed to do was call, get in a cage like a specimen and whale on someone with all Manticore genetics engineering have to offer. He just needed to be sure to be the victor for six matches straight. And because he's a new face, a young face with a smart mouth, Alec knew the odds would be against him. If only he could find someone to put a bet on him (and wouldn't rip him off of his share), he would double his take.

Three days. 

He couldn't ever get five grand in three _weeks_. Even if he did a couple of Fifties and some Hundreds every night until his hand and ass was sore, he could maybe come up with a little over four. Five if he skipped lunch and dinner. But _seven_ grand? Fuck.

The idea, though, of being locked in a cage as hundreds gawked to see how well 494 does made his guts clench, nausea collect in his throat and his hands shake. His tongue stuck to the roof of his mouth. Intellectually, he knew there were no electrodes attached to his limbs, no stark jumpsuit, no stopwatches but Geez. Why couldn't they fight in pits?

But three days. Alec's head spun. He glanced over the ledge at the muted streets below. Three days he could be walking out there below, collars turned up, weeks without fearing being stopped by the police.

 _So call already_ , Alec told himself. 

The card made a flapping noise as it fought the breeze around Alec. He hastily tucked the card back into his pocket before he loses it.

He needed a phone, Alec decided. And payphones outside meant calling after curfew, a dozen or so hover drones looming above you.

Cale has a phone.

Alec leaned his head over the edge again. He chewed on his lower lip. He left behind the Manticore files. It would make sense to go back to review them. Cale offered them. Said he had no need for them. Logan Cale wasn't interested in Manticore anymore but that didn't mean Alec wasn't. Know thy enemy and all that.

Slowly, Alec tied his lines, stepped into his harness and eased over the side of the building.

Brownouts are dangerous, Alec thought. Cale could have fallen on that nice butt of his and not get up. It would suck if his rainy day meal ticket croaked because of a few lousy lights.

His line inched lower. 

When Alec reached the window, he rubbed his eyes and checked again.

The living room was glowing.

Okay, maybe the living room didn't exactly gain photoluminescence abilities since the last week he was here, but the dozens of lit candles placed all over the space washed the living room, changing it to something else.

Practical, Alec reasoned, for a brownout. He gingerly felt the windows. Inside, there was a pang in his chest at the realization all the windows were locked. Cale didn't want to blow out the candles, that's all. Nevertheless, it was irritating because Alec left his kit up on the roof. All he had with him was his blade and some wire.

It took him two minutes to disengage the alarm tonight. And that was annoying.

Alec slipped in and closed the window before the breeze could blow out a fifth candle. He relit the blown out ones and stood there, letting his sight adjust first.

By all rights, Alec should shout out a greeting, in case Cale was having one on one time with his camera or laptop again. He frowned mildly when he couldn't hear typing or talking. Cale wouldn't be stupid enough to leave an apartment full of lit candles, would he?

Carefully, along the walls, Alec crept through, scanning the living room, passed the bedroom door, and stilled by the computer area. Through a partially opened door, across from the computer area and by the kitchen, he spotted Cale in the dining area.

Asleep.

Smiling to himself, Alec reached the dining area. He leaned on one of the walls and folded his arms. He should say something; he knew how unpleasant it was to be sneak up on when you're sleeping. But in the golden hue and blurred shadows, the vignette presented to Alec invited no sound.

Head pillowed by folded arms, Cale slept, his wire rims askew on his face, lips parted. He made a bed of a leather-bound book under his cheek. Alec smirked, able to pick out the tiny ink smudge on his cheek. His long spiky brown hair was flattened on the side he slept, the other side flopped over, nearly concealing the earpiece in his ear.

Stacks of folders, similar to the ones Alec perused the last time he was here, surrounded Cale like a barricade. They were sorted and set in neat pillars, encoded and color tagged in a way that made Alec's fingers itch to poke through them. There was a half-eaten sandwich beside Cale's head. Chicken? No. Ham, Alec determined after a deep inhale. Mustard, no ketchup, Alec added after an additional sniff. He made a face. The man does not know how to eat. The coffee cooling next to the sandwich smelled good though. Alec took a deeper sniff. Been a while he came across real coffee. How many weeks of alleys and third story jobs would it take to buy a bag of that stuff? And here Cale has a cup of it cold and neglected by him. 

Alec carefully made his way over to Cale. The wheelchair was pushed under the table, pretty much pinning Cale between the table and his chair. He smirked as he stood over Cale, idly peeking into the chair to consider the low slung black jeans Cale had on but damn, Heather didn't go commando. Nice black boxer briefs though.

Bending down, Alec cupped a hand lightly over the back of Cale's head. Cale didn't rouse. His hair, Alec thought absently, was surprisingly feather soft. His thumb slid up, against the downward direction of Cale's hair and marveled how the trimmed strands felt like cool filaments yet warm under his touch. He could feel the heat of Cale's dry skin; it was a faded tan hue on the back of his neck. He ghosted a hand over the winged ridge of Cale's shoulder blades under stretched jersey fabric faded and worn from multiple washings. They all beckoned to be touched. And Alec suspected even with the compact musculature that wrapped around Cale's slim build, the skin would feel just as silken and soft going all the way down the surprisingly strong line of his back.

Alec's smirk faded. He gulped and withdrew his hand. Clearing his throat, Alec waited. He coughed. Still nothing. There was a stray thought maybe he should kick the wheelchair, that'll do the trick but Alec dropped that idea as fast as he thought it, scowling at himself.

Just when Alec decided maybe blowing into Cale's ear would be mutual fun, the phone base in the living room rang. Immediately, his earpiece chimed.

"Yeah?" Cale murmured, stirring. Eyes still closed, his hand pulled free from under his face to tap it. "This is he." His shoulders tensed. Cale straightened. "How sure are you about that? Do you think you can meet me lat— _Shit_!"

Alec sheepishly wiggled his fingers at Cale, who jerked so violently when he found Alec standing over him his notebook slid over to fall over the other side of the table. 

"Wha?" Cale stammered, his voice still comically an octave higher as the buzzing in his earpiece grew frantic. "No, I'm fine. I just—Look, too risky to talk over the phone. Can we meet? Two hours? Fine. Later." Cale ended the call and wordlessly tracked Alec trotting over to the other side of the table to retrieve the book.

"Sorry," Alec offered as he picked up the book. His eyes casually passed over pages. "This is archaic for you. Your journal? Does it say ' _Dear Diary, I saw him again today. He's so dreamy.'_ "

"Sometimes it's not safe to keep everything in a computer." Cale extended his hand for it. 

"I tried to wake you before." Alec snapped the book shut and slid it over to Cale. "Didn't work. Too bad the phone rang. I was working my way up to Sleeping Beauty." 

Cale blinked. " _Okay_." He collected his sandwich to stick it in the fridge. Returning to the dining table, Cale grabbed his coffee and drained it before continuing, "You left your files here last time."

"Memorized everything already. Figured it was too risky to be walking around with them." Alec observed Cale going back to the kitchen for more caffeine but he shook his head when Cale pointed questioningly at a spare mug.

"Did you need a place to crash again?" Cale said as he finished his third cup before putting the mug in the sink. "You can help yourself while I'm out."

"Nah. Police seems to think I'm heading for Los Angeles." Alec's frown deepened. "You going somewhere?"

Cale shrugged as he maneuvered around Alec and steered for the bedroom with his journal. Too bad. Alec was a wicked speed reader even upside down. 

Alec studied the stacks of folders on the dining table. He scratched the back of his neck out of habit. He jerked, swearing when he felt the bandage completely peel off. He held it in his hand, dismayed, when Cale emerged.

"Here," Cale said. He tossed a rubber band wrapped bundle of new gauze pads on the dining table.

"Thought you might need more." Cale struggled into a wool pea coat.

"Thanks." Alec curled a hand over the bundle. His breathing slowed. Catching sight of Cale's shoulder holster as he shrugged deeper into his coat, Alec pursed his lips. "There's a brownout today."

"First one in three months," Cale remarked as he circled the room, blowing out each candle. "World is less broken every day."

Alec didn't agree but didn't contradict him either. "Less broken or not," he said as he tracked Cale, "it's still a brownout. It’ll be kinda dark out there."

"Brownouts tend to do that," Cale agreed.

Alec scowled. "Let me guess. Work?"

"What else would people be out at night time for?" Cale paused as if somehow, he caught Alec's wince in the dark. "I wasn't talking about you."

"No," Alec said thinly. "We were talking about you." He scratched the dining table with a finger. "Want me to keep you company?"

"No," Cale said curtly.

"Don't take too long to think about it," Alec muttered, hurt. "Maybe I should tag along anyway," he said casually.

"Why? Think I can't spin around Seattle at night all by myself?" Cale said tightly.

"Hey." Alec held up his hands. "Just thought I would offer some help. You know, in return for the files."

"Oh." Cale exhaled unsteadily. "Sorry. Overreacted."

"Nah—Maybe. Okay, yeah, you so did."

"You don't owe me anything," Cale said, unsmiling in the dark. Alec caught him squinting at his watch.

"If you say so," Alec muttered. "So where are you going again?"

Cale gave a short laugh. "Nice try." He gestured towards the stacks. "I placed your folders back on top. Added some notes in there of other files you might want to take a look at." He shrugged. "I did a lot of research in my day."

"You know," Alec called out, stopping Cale in his tracks. "When I said Quid Pro Quo, I kinda also meant stuff about you."

"What's there to know?" Cale said lightly. "I'm a retired cyber journalist who apparently does porn in his spare time."

Alec snorted. "If you say so, Heather." He could see Cale's eyebrows go up. "It's our thing."

"Our _thing_?"

Alec sniggered. "Yeah, I call you Heather, you call me 'the man'"

Cale scoffed. "I'm not asking."

"You sure? Because I really want to tell." Alec's smirk faded. "You don't do this every night, do you? Skulking the streets of Seattle with your big nasty gun while I'm busy robbing you guys blind?"

"What can I say?" Cale said lightly. "I can skulk pretty well with this." The wheelchair rocked back a little.

Alec's stomach churned uncomfortably. It must be dinner time. Maybe Cale wouldn't mind him finishing off that sandwich in the fridge. "I still say I should—"

"I'll see you later." Cale neatly turned before Alec could finish. 

Alec scowled after him but the frown faded as he considered the table then the hallway Cale took. He pulled out the card in his pocket. 

Three days, huh?

Alec grabbed the phone in the living room and dialed, barely glancing at the card on the coffee table. When a voice grumbled, "Who the fuck is this?" Alec grinned grimly into the receiver.

"Your next winner, that's who," Alec bit out. He flexed his free hand. "When's the next game?"

Stupid Steelheads.

Alec sucked on the cut on his lower lip, even though he knew it would only make it bleed again. But the metallic aftertaste it left behind slaked the howling his guts made. The chanting and cursing in that fenced arena. Jesus, it felt _good_ to really let loose and not be concerned about whether or not someone noticed he was unusually strong. The opponents there were all revved up, hopped up on every illegal drug in the black market that no one in the audience noticed (or cared) his eyes were the only ones not glazed over. 

First guy in the ring was _pathetic_. A couple of elbows to his sternum and he fell like a poleaxed beast. Second guy fell nearly as fast even though he was twice the previous opponent's size. The guy favored his left too much, compensating for his right shoulder.

The third...

Maybe if he hadn't taunted about how he was going to put Alec in a wheelchair like he did the others, Alec wouldn't have grabbed him by the balls and left him bow-legged and sobbing like a girl on the concrete floor.

The fourth and fifth lasted longer, but let themselves be distracted by the blonde in the leather mini-skirt ( _only_ a mini skirt, too, _Damn_!). Of course, if they knew she bet heavily against them, they wouldn't have been distracted by her “Hello Boys” boobs. She bet against Alec too; fooled by the 'baby face killer' as the emcee had introduced him as. The breasts she pressed on his bare back and the tongue she stuck in his ear was pleasant and ten different ways to fun but not enough to deter him from his goal: Number six.

A Steelhead. 

Why did it have to be a Steelhead?

Of course _that_ fight took longer. 

Maybe if he hadn't thought he caught a glimpse of eyes the color of a midnight rainforest watching him from the far back of the crowd, the asshole wouldn't have gotten a lucky punch in. Bastard upgraded his knuckles with plating. Son of a bitch, that hurt!

But Six went down eventually. The crowd was pissed and oops, Steelhead's peeps were pretty pissed too. Can't please everybody. They waited outside to 'congratulate' him. Alec thanked them as graciously as he could since Manticore engineered him to be a polite little killer. 

After their 'conversation', Alec limped off (one of them replaced his foot with a steel prosthetic. Shit, he really hate Steelheads) to his current hidey hole. He went back a day later, not as hurting, to pick up his share. When the guy had slipped another roll twice the size of his take, Alec paused.

_"Is this because I'm pretty?" Alec joked. The guy hadn’t given any hints of being interested in anything more than meat for his fighting cages. He tensed, not taking the new roll that might seal a deal._

_"Nah," the guy grunted. "Your girlfriend called in before to tell us where to wire her winnings. Said this was your share of the bet she placed on you." He'd paused. "Minus a forty percent processing fee, of course." He sneered. "Normally, I frown upon betting on yourself. Not good sportsmanship, but yer girlfriend was persuasive."_

_"And generous," Alec had muttered, the second roll still on the table between them. "Girlfriend?"_

_"Shit, man. You can't keep track?" The guy flipped through his ledger. "Called in the bet to one of my guys when you first came in: to let ride on all six games. Triple or nothing. Uh...where was it...yeah...Heather, that's it."_

_Alec blinked. He cleared his throat. "Oh her. Yeah, okay._ Heather _. Gotcha."_

_"A looker, huh?" the guy mused enviously._

_Very. Alec shrugged modestly. "Good to look at coming and going."_

_"Especially coming, I bet," the other sneered._

_Alec wondered how fast he could take his money and bounce after beating that smirk off his pockmarked face._

_"Listen, if you ever want to fight again, give me a call and if your girl wants to place another bet..." The man cleared his throat meaningfully. "We could get together and discuss it."_

_No. Fucking. Way._

_Alec grinned toothily. "Okie dokie. I'll talk it over with her," he said brightly. He scooped up the second roll, secreting it into his hidden pocket before he gave in the temptation to count it._

_He went straight to the roof. Didn't stop at Go, but God damn, did he collect his $200!_

__Whistling, Alec thumbed through the greasy bills, taking the time to fix them facing all the same way. His smile kept getting bigger and his stomach was churning. He felt lightheaded when he split the stack into two rolls for Old Man Wei and realized there was still enough left over to make a sizable roll to rub uncomfortably in his boot. He wondered if this was what being drunk feels like. He breathed out sharply through his teeth, his cheeks aching.

"Yeah," he whispered. "Oh fu— _Yeah_!" He pumped a fist in the air and he would have whooped. But he knew better. Big Brother was watching. 

Alec hung over the edge of the ledge with his arms swinging. He grinned down the side of the building. He slung over his backpack, making sure it was secure before he vaulted over the edge and let his line drop him down to the penthouse window.

The locked window didn't irk him today. It was early. Maybe he'll catch Heather napping again. Alec disarmed the alarm, slipped in through the window and allowed himself a turn, a bow before sliding the window shut. He spun around, arms spread wide in a "Tada" fashion. When he realized no one was watching, Alec rubbed his hands together. Let's see where Sleeping Beauty is today.

 

\---

 

He wasn't sleeping.

Around the kitchen, between the guestroom and the hallway that lead to the main area was a small room Alec had before dismissed as tactically obsolete. It had no windows, only one doorway that led out to the hall that was not an exit and held nothing of value except for few light 25lb weights and an elevated padded platform.

From the kitchen, crouched behind the island, Alec watched Cale through the gap in the door. 

Red faced, gritting his teeth, Cale sat on the platform, neck straining, his arms shaking as they stretched out behind him to brace the edge. As Alec watched, his left leg bent fractionally, twitching from ankle to hip. Up half a centimeter, held it then dropped, slamming Cale's exposed heel back into the platform's metal legs.

"...four..."

Alec swallowed, his fingers gripping his knees as he watched Cale do a fifth. _Come on, come on, Logan_ , he urged, watching that leg tremble before it straightened, or try. To an untrained eye, it didn't move at all. To Alec's eye, he saw every quarter degree and he knew Logan felt every bit of it. 

By the time Cale finished his set and moved on to his right, the back of his left heel was bruised, purpled all the way up past his Achilles' tendon. And when he finally finished his right, Logan's breathing sounded like it was dragged over grated glass. 

So when Logan started again on his left again, Alec wanted to storm in there and stop him. The idiot wasn't an X-5.

But he couldn't move. He watched as Cale's gray t-shirt went black with sweat. Logan stopped every so often to take his glasses off, used a trembling hand to wipe the sweat dripping into his eyes and continued. Alec's throat constricted when he had to stop at one point, his upper body shuddering with exertion. But after a few sharp inhales and exhales, Cale went right back into it.

When Logan was finally done, it felt like Alec had been underwater for too long. His chest ached from an exertion that shouldn't exist for him. He watched Cale wearily wipe his face and neck with a towel. Then, using his hands and hips, made his way to the edge, towards his parked wheelchair, shimmying closer so he could drop into his seat. 

His elbows buckled just as he dismounted and Logan fell, missing his chair.

Alec was about to surge to his feet when Logan shakily sat up from the floor. He made a noise, a harsh sound that froze Alec into immobility. Cale sat there, leaning heavily against the legs of the raised platform, head bowed, hand absently rubbing the jaw that banged into the platform when he fell.

Abruptly, Logan reached behind him, grabbed the wheelchair by its front castor wheel and shoved it away from him. The chair toppled into the standing rack of free weights and lay on its side. The top wheel turned briefly then stilled.

Alec started at the sound. He found himself panting quietly as he waited for Cale to look up, waited for Cale to do something other than sit on the floor and staring at nothing at all. 

_Look up. Come on, son of a bitch, look up._

Just as Alec decided to hell with it, Logan raised red rimmed eyes and looked blearily at his chair. He grunted and shook his head. Alec saw him mouth "Stupid, Heather" before dragging himself closer to his chair with his elbows.

When the wheelchair was righted and Cale hoisted himself into it, Alec crawled quietly back into the living room. He slipped out the window, rearmed it and drew his line up until he was above Cale's windows.

He waited.

After ten minutes, he dropped back down and banged on the window. Loudly. He disengaged the alarm again and poked his head into the living room.

"Honey," he hollered, "I'm _home_!"

When the wheelchair rolled into the living room, Logan, still flushed and trembling, arched an eyebrow at Alec when he hopped into the living room with a flourish.

" _Honey_?" Logan repeated hoarsely as he trailed behind Alec when he went right for the kitchen.

"Well, what else would I call my thoughtful and loyal girlfriend _Heather_ for having such faith in my kickass abilities?" Alec brandished one of his rolls over his shoulder. "Man, I'm thirsty. Are you thirsty?" He grabbed the tallest glasses he could find and filled them up with cold water. He held one glass to the overhead light. Damn, high rise penthouse water was _clear_. He shoved the other glass in Cale's direction, pretty much at his face, close enough Cale needed to lean back to look at it. 

When Logan warily took the glass and started drinking, his throat stretched out long as he drank, Alec leered.

"Well, you're looking nice and sweaty today. What were you doing and did you film it?"

Logan, done with the water, readjusted his spectacles and rolled his eyes ceiling-ward. "What if I said more porn?"

"I would say today is a banner day," Alec told him solemnly and Logan snorted in a way that shouldn't be adorable. No way. Alec finished the rest of his water, smirking behind his glass when he noted the tiny tremors along Logan's arms were subsiding. He said nothing when Logan hiked up his socks higher over his bruised ankles. 

"Seriously though," Alec placed a hand to his chest. "I am touched you have so much faith in my ability to beat the crap out of people." He pretended to wipe a tear off his cheek. "Really. Words fail me."

"That'll be a first," Logan muttered. He blinked when Alec pulled out his loot out of his backpack.

"Never say I don't spread the wealth," Alec announced. "Place in Fremont had chickens _and_..." He opened the bag wider. "Carrots."

Logan's mouth twitched wearily at the corner. "And what are we supposed to do with this?"

Alec glared. "You cook it. _I_ eat it." He gestured towards the kitchen. "Man invented fire. Rich guy invented 2000 BTU gas stove range." He grinned when Logan chuckled. It sounded rough with disuse but hey, Alec kind of like that sex line throaty voice.

"I suppose I can think of something."

"Exactly." Alec beamed. "You could use the protein. And I could use the free time casing your place while you cook."

Logan gave him a look before wordlessly reaching for the chicken.

 

\---

 

For a guy who claimed he didn't cook much anymore, Alec thought the chicken was pretty good. Logan roasted it, stewing the carrots in the chicken juices. The food was hot, tasted like it should and served on real plates. And somehow, from his perpetually empty fridge, Cale managed to make some garlic bread too.

They ate in the living room after Logan failed to find an alternate place for his stacks of files on the dining table. Alec swore the stacks grew since he was here too. He was afraid to touch them and disrupt some administrative balance that could throw off the known universe. They sat in front of the windows: Logan transferred to the couch, Alec cross-legged on the carpet across from him and the coffee table with the sun warming his back. 

Alec told him about the fights, demonstrating his best moves by wildly gesturing with a half-eaten drumstick in his grip. Logan smiled wanly as he picked through his food, giving Alec a funny look when the second drumstick was tossed onto his plate despite the shredded chicken breast still taking up half his dish.

"And when I slammed back into the outer fence, there's this gap," Alec said around a mouthful of chicken, carrots and bread, "she came up through it and _hello!_ " He puffed out his chest. "That's when I really appreciated the no shirt requirement in the ring!" He grinned unrepentant, knowing full well chicken was hanging out of his mouth.

"You did look pleased with yourself." Logan commented distractedly as he took a bite of garlic toast.

"So that _was_ you I saw there!" Alec pointed the chicken bone at Logan's nose. He smirked when Logan looked at it, slightly cross-eyed behind his rims before delicately moving the bone away with his fork. "I gotta say. Didn't figure you as a fight fan." He waggled his eyebrows. "A regular?"

"Most places aren't wheelchair accessible like this one." Logan's strained smile on his face only made him look more drawn when it faded.

"Well, this one wasn't much of a show," Alec groused. "These guys went down with not much more than a bitch slap."

"Most of them signed up to get so high on narcotics they can float across the Pacific without a boat," Logan said bluntly. "Their so-called _trainers_ skim half their take in exchange for drugs that were seized by the police. Complete profit all around." Logan stabbed the chicken with his fork before setting it down. 

"The recruits are either too high to notice or too addicted to care. They keep fighting until their bodies finally give out." Logan gave Alec a half-smile. "They usually come out of the rings in body bags though, not just with broken kneecaps and arms. Now they'll live to get what's left of their take and retire cleaned up."

Alec stared. "And you know all this how?" He scowled when Logan shrugged. "So I guess you don't normally come to watch then."

"Had to be sure of my investment," Logan murmured as he sipped on the second glass of water Alec poured him instead of that overpriced grape juice. Who drank wine for lunch anyway?

"You had doubts investing in a handsome, souped-up, genetically engineered, ass kicking machine from Manticore?" Alec quipped. 

"You're not a machine." Logan poked at his carrots with his fork before taking a bite. 

Alec scowled at him for going off topic. Party pooper.

"Anyway," Alec said louder, loud enough Logan blinked, "you must have gotten a good return. Triple or nothing?" He grinned. "You know, _Heather_ , this could be the start of something. I win the fights; you bet on a sure thing."

"And how many Steelheads do you suppose will be there next time in the ring?" Logan asked mildly as he cut into a piece of chicken. He waved his fork vaguely towards Alec's face. "And I'm guessing they'll be just as happy with you winning over their friends again. How many do you think will wait outside next time?"

"The more the better." Alec darkened. "Damn Steelheads."

Logan made a non-committal sound as he chewed. 

"How did you know I was going to be there anyway?" Alec wanted to know. He blinked when he realized there was another drumstick in the bottom of the pan. Whoa, mutant chicken? He grabbed it and tore into it. 

Logan nodded behind him towards the phone base. He held up the receiver that was on the couch next to him. "Last number dialed." Another brief smile. "You should cover your tracks better."

"Yeah but didn't figure porn writers were also _nosy_ porn writers," Alec muttered, his face flushing. _One demerit, 494._

"There's only so much porn I can do," Logan returned dryly. He sat back, his hands squeezing his thighs as he watched Alec polish off the rest of the bread. 

Alec frowned when he glanced over to Cale's plate and realized there hadn't been a third drumstick after all. He nodded towards the pan. "There's still plenty more."

"I'm good." Logan pulled down his spectacles and cleaned them off with the corner of his shirt. 

_No you're not_ , Alec thought, noting it took Logan a few tries before he could put his glasses on. "Want more water?"

"Any more and _I'll_ float down the Pacific." Logan ran a piece of carrot across his plate and popped it in his mouth. Alec tried not to stare when the pink tip of his tongue licked his lower lip to catch the lingering juices. 

After a beat, Logan sighed. "So how long were you standing there?" 

Alec froze. "What?"

"The water. Protein." Logan gestured towards the bruise on his chin that Alec been ignoring as it spread up to his jaw. "The fact you've been avoiding looking at this the whole time." He smiled thinly to himself. "You were standing there long enough."

Alec fidgeted. "Listen—"

"It's fine," Logan interrupted. Alec grimaced inwardly at the weary tone. "Whatever you saw or not, it doesn't change anything, does it?" He gripped his thighs. "It is what it is."

Alec picked at the remains of the chicken still in the pan. "It looked like there was something though." He nodded towards Logan's legs. "I don't know if you noticed but there was something."

A grimace crossed Logan's face. "I always notice...Medical treatment. Did get to walk again for a short while, too." 

Alec perked up. "That's great. Can you take it again? Is it the money? Because if it is, you and I can hit the rings lik—"

"It's not the money." Logan sighed. "The doctor treating me is dead." 

"Oh." Alec forked a carrot and swept it around his plate. "That sucks," Alec offered.

Logan stuttered out a chuckle. Alec winced and went back to eating every bit of carrot he could find.

"Could you…" Alec shrugged. "I don't know, maybe reproduce what that doctor did for you?"

Logan shook his head."Need the doctor's equipment for the injections to be effective. I'd sent someone to see if the doctor left any notes behind but the office was destroyed and he..." A shadow flickered across his face. "Anyway, that's that."

Alec studied Logan's ankles covered up by his socks. They didn't completely cover the bruises. "Well, whatever I saw didn't look like it was too effective. Shouldn't you get some sort of therapist person to help you?"

Logan's throat worked. "I had one." 

Alec's throat felt tight, like in a stranglehold. "Had?"

Logan averted his gaze. He didn't reply but his silence was answer enough for Alec.

"Crap," Alec fumbled. He suddenly couldn't think of what to say. "Uh…sorry."

"Yeah. Me too." Logan stared hard into his plate. "That first treatment; it didn't stick anyway. I can still feel some things but..." He shrugged but didn't look at Alec. "That'll probably go away too."

"You don't know that," Alec protested.

Logan shook his head, smiling as if there was a punchline Alec missed. "Nevertheless, thanks for not rushing in to pick up the wheelchair guy fallen on his ass."

Alec mumbled as he mopped up the gravy with the last of the toast. He peered up at Logan, but Logan didn't notice as the phone by him rang. He listened intently and made some arrangement to meet later. More work for Heather, Alec supposed. He squashed down the scowl he could feel wanting to break free. 

When Logan hung up but didn't share any details, Alec reluctantly unwound from the floor. "Hey, I gotta bounce. Got a date with an inker in Chinatown." He took one last bite of the drumstick. "Thanks for the eats."

"Thanks for the chicken." Logan tracked him to the window. "Good luck with the inker."

"Luck?" Alec scoffed. "Luck has nothing to do with it." Unfortunately, money does. He waggled his fists in the air. "Seriously, we should think about this betting gig. We could clean up."

"No thanks. I already have a job," The corner of Logan's mouth quirked. "Porn, remember?"

"Too bad." Alec swung up to the window and reconnect his rigging. He paused. "You know, I did think about going in there, pick you up, be a big damn hero," he smirked as he let his eyes linger on Logan's lap, "maybe cop a feel." His shoulders lifted and dropped. "But it didn't look like you needed my help." He grinned toothily. "Later."

Logan blinked owlishly through his glasses. "Oh uh, sure."

One last grin and Alec went up his line, feeling like he just won another six fights.

 

\---

 

He'd forgotten to budget for it.

It was when his vision blurred around the edges while hanging upside during a fourth story job, that Alec remembered there was one other thing he needed money for.

_No, no, no, no, no.._

He curled and uncurled his fists as he sat on the roof, his back against the ledge. The offset metal shed that capped the roof grew softer around the edges, sharpened, then blurred like he was looking at it through a sheet of glass covered in soap scum.

Fuck.

Alec knew it was wishful thinking when he had no symptoms for five months; the chances he's licked this screwed-up short circuit was as likely as Lydecker sending him a Christmas card. This whole mess was a sick joke; every single RNA and DNA strand in him was branded and perfected by the people of Manticore yet they left in a flaw like this? What the hell? Why him?

A vibration crept up from the base of his spine and clawed up until it thrummed at the base of his skull. Alec found himself thumping the back of his head on brick. He twisted around and barely managed to stay upright before he reversed his position.

Now the vibration pulled and coiled around his head from the neck up.

Alec grunted. Well, he wanted to do something more louder, more crude, something that smashed things to rival the pounding in his temples that he knew was just going to get worse. No, what he really needed to do, what was strategically smarter option, was to go to ground: find a hole to burrow in, and hope he could live through this shit. 

Even if Alec could stabilize long enough to seek out some tryptophan, he already blew his money on Old Man Wei, the second roll was given in advance for a future treatment. 

Only there wasn't going to be a future treatment because he’d found Lydecker's cell number etched underneath Wei's register. The old perv must not have thought Alec could read Chinese or would try to break into his register. The guy must have planned to get everything Alec had first, before cashing in the bonus for turning in anyone with a bar code.

Damn it.

Alec had blazed out of there. He didn't even take back his money. He was too pissed (and maybe too freaked out) to do anything more than wreck Old Man Wei's joint and add to the collection of structural damage to the room he squatted in. 

A tremor rippled under his knuckles, a hot slicing sensation reminding him how dumbass that idea was, even if it made him feel better at the time. He grimaced and pressed his fists to his chest. _Don't throw up. Don't throw up._

It must have been the fight with those Steelheads. Damn metal brains wanted to shake down more rent from the squatters. They tried to knock the pretty off Alec, but instead, they must have broken down whatever that had dammed up inside Alec. A day after the ink parlor, a day after crawling back panting and swearing because the back of his neck just wouldn't stop _burning_ , Alec woke up feeling like something was about to snap. And since when there was a shortage on tryptophan? His stash whittled down until he was rationing half a pill a day, but it'd been five months. It was fine. Right?

So what did he do? He ignored it.

_Idiot._

Alec closed his eyes. He took a deep breath and another until the tingling he felt collecting around his knees subsided. The roof felt too small, too open today. The sky loomed too wide, too close. The building felt too short.

He couldn’t stay there.

His watch face moved too much to tell time but judging how the sun scorched his over-sensitized skin, it wasn't yet noon. Logan left at 0500 and probably hasn't come back yet.

He'll crash in the guest room, just until the worst passes. Maybe slip out before Logan gets back from whatever he's doing. 

His head jerked up and down minutely, as if in agreement.

The couplings were getting rusty; they were unable to catch the harness rings at the first try. Alec shook his hands loose before he tightened the lines, shoved his fingers through his grip gloves. He clung to the edge. When his knees steadied, he took a deep breath and eased himself over the side.

His blurry vision made it feel like he was free-falling. When the line jerked at exactly the twenty eight point five feet, the sun's reflection intensified the glare that burned his retinas. Or at least, it felt like it did. 

The glass rattled under his fingertips as he searched for the wire he knew was there days before. Did Logan change alarms again? Any other day, Alec would have thought that was cute.

The pane shook like teeth chattering. Alec finally found the binary overpass line and he thought he cut it right, but when he slid the window open and hooked a leg over the sill, the alarms _wailed_. A shadow emerged out from the corner of his eye. Alec jolted. Shit, did he go to the wrong unit? 

Alec tried to reach above him for the sill to pull up and get the hell out when the leg still inside spasmed. His hands seized, his head spun and for the very first time, Alec felt the bile rising up his throat when the coupling he threaded through his harness began to unravel from its sleeve. His right arm reached out to grab something, _anything_ , when a strong grip clamped over his wrist and jerked him through the window. Hard.

Just before the sun faded in his vision, Alec thought he felt himself falling, slamming into something solid before tumbling to a floor, line tangled around his legs, glass breaking.

He thought he heard a voice. But then the lights went out.

 

\---

 

_The hoverdrones buzzed above him like baying bloodhounds._

_He shook as he held onto the ladder and peered bleary-eyed through the manhole lid at the black metal disk that floated by in a lazy circle around the general vicinity._

_His fingers ached holding onto the rusty rungs and his nostrils flared at the stench of human waste dissolving unchecked in what was supposed to be Terminal City's drinking water. Standing in it wasn't a big issue. The splashing his trembling would create was._

_The metallic, high pitch whining intensified as a second hoverdrone joined the first._

_The rung flaked and cut into his fingers. He watched fat drops of his blood dribbling down each rung; breath caught in his throat as one freed itself from the ladder and dove for the water below._

Plop.

_Did they hear it? It sounded like a thunder crack in his ears. The red droplet swirled as it dissolved into the tainted water._

_The hoverdrones were still up there. But then a shot rang from the east, and in an eye blink they were gone._

_He hung on, shaking, his blood painting over the rust on the rungs. Even when the seizures finally stopped, he stayed where he was for a very long time._

 

\---

 

His big toe wouldn't stop moving on its own inside his boot. 

Alec blinked crusty eyes towards the ceiling. He tensed because his body wouldn't quit disobeying him. So he lay there staring at the increasingly familiar looking ceiling, head pillowed with something that was soft and smelled clean.

And he could hear talking.

"...must have triggered the alarm by mistake when I tried to open the window."

"We could adjust it for you so it'll be more accessible."

"No, it's fine. My PCA can help me if it's necessary. I know better now." There was a strained laugh.

"Is your assistant in here with you now, sir?"

Alec flinched at the hard, authoritative tone that threatened to overwhelm the placid one replying.

"He's on his way."

"Our service does offer an in-site inspection if an alarm was activated. I could take a look around the place for you. No charge."

"No, that's all right. I'm the only one here." A pause. "Until my PCA gets here."

"If you like..." There was a footstep and the voice roughened invitingly. "I can stay with you until he arrives."

There was a weighted silence, the creak of a wheel tread on marble.

"No thank you," came the smooth reply.

"Are you sure? With the alarm off, given your situation, you shouldn't be alone. You might not be alone right now. Someone could be inside."

"There is," someone replied dryly, "Me."

"With the alarm disarmed, your home is a prime target."

"Doubtful. I'm on the second to the top floor. And like I said, my PCA is on his way." A door hinge creaked.

"If you change your mind, this is my number. Want me to help you put it somewhere so you won't lose it? I can slip it in your pocket—"

"I better keep it out. In case I change my mind."

There was a throaty chuckle. "That's good. Would be a pity if anything happens to a nice looking fellow like you."

The door thumped shut.

Alec tried to lift his head but only managed high enough to realize he was on Logan's couch. He sank down and plucked at the thick, almost furry throw tossed over him. He'd seen it before tucked around Logan's legs.

The sigh beyond the couch told him Logan entered the living room.

"It's my legs that stopped working, not my brain," Logan grumbled.

Alec weakly snorted.

"Dean?" Logan came within view and Alec now got why whoever was by the door was being so _helpful_. Logan looked like he'd just come out of the shower, his brown hair in touchable, messy tufts. Freshly shaven and squinting myopically, Logan looked years younger and if Logan was looking at the guy by the door with that same partially opened mouth expression...

"Who was that at the door?" Alec rasped. 

"Building security." Logan slipped his glasses on and blinked a few times to focus before continuing. "Apparently, I accidentally opened the window without disarming my alarm first."

The tingling down his body was from the seizures not from the sight of Logan's shower damp skin. Not because of those soft gray sweats with reverse stitching, the neckline worn and stretched, exposing the line of his throat and clavicle. The fabric clung to the topography of a lean torso. And those thin sweat pants draped over the soft bulge on his lap...

"I think you need this more than me," Alec croaked. He grabbed the fleece blanket off his legs. He tried to throw it over to Logan, but his arm started shaking again. "Damn it."

"You shouldn't move so much." Logan edged closer to the couch to reclaim the blanket. He tossed it over Alec again. "The more you move, the worse it gets."

"W-what?" Alec asked, his eyes glued to Logan's face. "You know what this is?"

Logan nodded. He turned and reached up to pull a thick curtain across the windows. The glare disappeared completely. "One thing Manticore couldn't control was the levels of serotonin."

No shit. Alec squeezed his eyes shut and bit back a groan. He was shaking like an addict. Damn it. He could feel Logan's eyes dissecting him, the walking (sort of), talking (kind of) freak show (hell, yes). 

"Your X-5 friend?" Alec bit out. "You played doctor for him?"

"I'm getting some goat's milk delivered." Logan ignored his last question. "Do you have any tryptophan left?"

Alec's "No," came out as a high pitched groan. He growled in his throat and curled into the couch, away from Logan.

A hand hesitantly touched his arm but it jerked back when Alec snarled before he could stop himself.

"Okay," Logan said quietly. "Just try to relax. Milk should be here pretty soon. That should help."

Alec said nothing. He clamped his mouth shut and pressed his fists to his chest.

The blanket over him was tugged higher past his hunched shoulders and Alec could feel Logan sitting there, watching him. The weighted stare peeled him apart, layer by layer, and the raw feel it left in Alec made him bristle. He made another involuntary sound and burrowed his head deeper under the blanket, out of sight.

"All right," Logan murmured. His chair eased over the carpet, wheels crunching over what sounded like broken glass. The curtains against Logan hushed as he wheeled by. "Get some rest."

Right. Whatever. Alec didn’t turn around; and when he heard Logan retreating to the computer area, the churning in his stomach still wouldn't leave him alone.

 

\---

 

There was a brief respite, when Alec could ignore his limbs and pretend they were not gnarled and pressed closed like he was bound by barbed wire. His neck ached, his _hair_ ached. He felt exposed, inside the kill box, lying there for Manticore to zero in. So when he felt the heat of an approaching hand, he cringed.

The hand retreated.

"Think you can sit up?" Logan asked, low in deference to the Alec's obvious pain.

 _No._ Alec gritted his teeth, his stomach clenched but he sat up anyway, halfway, the armrest against his hip prevented him from completely tipping over.

Logan was a mess of shadows, indistinguishable. Alec flinched, pressed back on the couch and warily tracked the dark mass as it wheeled closer, stopping short of a bouncing knee.

"Here." Logan reached down to the carpet and passed him a large mug. It rivaled Logan's coffee mug that staked a claim on his computer desk. "The market just delivered this."

Alec scoffed. How much did that cost? Sometimes, it's lucky if a market even opens never mind delivering. He held the mug with both hands, vaguely aware of Logan's fingers bracing the bottom and prodding it towards his mouth.

"It's warm." And it smelled like...Alec turned his head away with a face. 

"It's easier to keep down." Logan didn't remove his fingers from the bottom of the mug; Alec was forced to drink it or have Logan tip it over his lap.

"Once the symptoms lessen, you can try it cold." 

Symptoms? Alec's mouth twisted. Leave it to Logan to think of it as an innocuous disease when it was Manticore's bio-engineered 'fuck you' to their cookie cutter soldiers. It was a way to keep the soldiers obedient with hands out for their daily tryptophan.

"Voice of experience?" Alec bit out. "More of your _curiosity_ from before?" He inwardly winced at the harsh bite lashing out at Logan. The mug shook in his grip and a tear of goat milk dropped onto the blanket.

"You need to stay calm, otherwise—"

"Don't tell me how crappy this shit house is g-going...going..." Alec clamped his mouth. Great. The cherry on top of his screwed up sundae.

A hand ghosted over a knee, paused before coming down. Long, steady fingers gripped his knee briefly before slipping away.

"Calm down." Logan's voice steeled, almost commanding.

Alec took a deep breath, a gulp of milk, and another inhale before the mug steadied and Logan sharpened to full color clarity before him.

"Sorry," Alec mumbled. 

"I guess not every X-5 becomes nice and sweet when they're sick," Logan said lightly.

"Your friend..." Alec blearily peered over the mug. "Seizures too, huh?"

"Happened twice." Logan's eyes slid away. "Couldn't really do much. Didn't know what was going on the first time."

Alec drained his mug. Not that he had a choice; Logan kept tilting the mug towards him until it was drained. He grimaced at the bottom. The tryptophan was usually tasteless. The milk tasted exactly like it smelled but to his surprise, the milk settled deep in his gut and its warmth spread out with tendrils of massaging heat.

"Better?"

Alec wordlessly nodded. He gestured towards the window. "Thanks for pulling me in before."

"Upper body strength." The wheelchair rocked back. "Has its uses sometimes."

"I didn't..." Alec furrowed his brow. "Did I break something?" He checked the windows but the curtains never moved. No breeze coming in through a shattered pane.

"Coffee table." Logan indicated to a cardboard box tucked at the far corner of the living room. "We sort of landed on it after I tipped over." At Alec's look, Logan lifted up one shoulder. "My wheelchair's capacity is only three hundred pounds."

Alec's mouth snapped shut. He vaguely remembered solid strength slamming against him, heat from a body not his, lining up against him. His lips itched, recalling the softness of cotton and stubble grazing his mouth as he dropped into Logan's la—

Alec glowered as best he could. "Are...are you trying to say I'm f-fat?"

A corner of Logan's mouth curled up. "I'm about one eighty, so you do the math."

Alec thought Logan was over estimating himself but said nothing. He scowled at Logan as he leaned back into couch. It still felt like someone was rocking the boat and the pounding had traveled up and settled in the front of his skull.

"Want another one warmed up?" Logan asked. There was a quiet _pop_ when he uncapped a new bottle. At Alec's head shake, he handed over the bottle. "There's also apples in the kitchen. I could get one for you before I go."

His stomach roiled. "Work?" Alec managed. He tracked Logan going around the couch as much as his stiff neck would allow. 

"Try to drink as much as you can," Logan advised as he zipped up his jacket. "Get some rest."

Alec stared hard at the curtained windows. He wondered how much time passed. 

"And stay c—"

"Calm. Got it." The words fought its way out of his tight throat. Alec could sense Logan behind him, could feel his gaze on him, his concern tangible. 

Muscles twitched and Alec bit down hard on his lower lip as his left knee bounced, noisily thumping the couch. _Stay calm. Heather said to stay calm_. Yeah right. Easy for him to say. 

"I have to go." Logan didn't move though.

"Right. Whatever," Alec grounded out as he sat on his hands. What did he care? Logan and his weird ass hours were none of his business. Heather wasn't his nurse.

Alec's elbows knocked into his sides. The headache spiked, sharp enough his eyes burned. _Son of a..._

"Finish all the milk."

Alec grunted, unwilling to trust himself to speak without sounding like a whiny bitch. Stupid seizures. He was PMS-ing all over the place.

"I won't be long."

Alec didn't know why Logan was still hanging around. "So go already," he mumbled. He waved at Logan, probably harder than he should after all Logan did. 

The wheelchair creaked once on the hardwood. Twice. Finally, it turned around.

When the front door opened and finally closed, Alec relaxed his jaw. Teeth knocking loudly against each other, he almost bit his tongue several times. He tried to pick up the bottle Logan left by his feet. He managed a couple of mouthfuls before he gave up, curled back on his side towards the couch.

Even though he was now alone in the place, Alec yanked the blanket over his head. The faint scent of coffee and aftershave smelled vaguely familiar. Exhausted, Alec let it lull him back to sleep.

_"That was his second dose."_

_He watched from his rack as 471 shook violently on the floor. A bed blocked the view of 471 but he could hear the teeth clacking loudly._

_Three men with clipboards stood over 471, observing impassively as his thin legs hopped and twitched off the cool concrete floor. The others, stood parade rest by their racks like him, eyes straight ahead, but he caught their eyes wandering, throats working._

_Flesh slapping against concrete didn't make much noise, he thought. The body didn't hold enough mass to apply the force on the unyielding surface to create a loud enough sound. Even the shin bones, as they banged sporadically on the floor and slowly discoloring with trapped blood, hardly made sound. The stopwatch drowned out the rattling when one of the observers clicked it. He showed it to the others. They nodded, wrote something on their clipboards, then shot him._

_Out of the corner of his eye, he spied 471's legs finally stilling._

A metallic, almost clean sound sliced the darkness. A clip was moving along in a handgun.

Alec's eyes flew open. 

His arms screamed as he reached, vaulted over the back of the couch, and tackled the threat.

Springs squeaked, something cool and curved cracked against his ankles, and with a move half born from the increasing spasms, Alec kicked out.

The Assailant's throat was foolishly left unprotected and he took advantage of it, ramming a forearm against it, forcing the head up and even with blurred vision, Alec followed the line of the arm to wrap around a bony wrist, slamming the limb down. The hand spasmed open. The gun fell. It clattered out of reach.

Target disarmed.

Alec straddled his assailant, knees bracketing the hips so his target couldn't buck him off. One arm against the throat. Another pressing down on the chest, Alec forced out what air was left in the lungs.

"Dean!"

His hearing went in and out, ringing like he'd gotten too close to church bells. He could feel his lower back knotted, and soon, Alec knew he wouldn't have the strength to pin his enemy down.

He leaned all his weight forward. Beneath him a chest heaved.

" _Dean!_ "

Alec snarled, shook his head violently but the knife prick tremors were cutting deeper and deeper, down his legs.

The enemy took advantage of his weakening grip and an arm broke free _._ It lashed out in a fist to the side of his face. Alec swayed then straightened. He needed to eliminate the target now before he become nonoperational. He began to lean the rest of his weight on the arm. A little bit more and he'll hear the _snap_.

" _X-494, stand down!_ "

Alec froze.

A hand weakly pawed at the arm over the throat. Alec lowered his increasingly heavy head. His vision cleared. He jerked back, recoiling, falling off legs that couldn't have bucked him off anyway, and fell on his ass.

Logan rolled onto his side and threw up.

"Shit..." Alec tried to crawl closer—ten fucking inches, but his arms couldn't hold him up. He reached out with a hand that felt alien to him and gripped Logan's right calf as the other man coughed and coughed.

"I thought..."

Logan held up one hand, gesturing weakly at Alec to give him a minute, the other a claw on his chest. He was still coughing.

Alec's mouth was dry. He felt numb, limbs leaden and still alien as he watched Logan curl in briefly. At last, the harsh coughing petered out and Logan rolled onto his back.

His eyes wouldn't stay in one place. They went from the broken glass partition by the kitchen, to the fleece blanket trapped under his shaky legs, to the wheelchair spinning lazily on its side, to the gun Logan was apparently dismantling when he got home.

Now _Alec_ wanted to throw up.

"Forgot," Logan gasped as he stared up at the ceiling. A cough racked him. Logan's face was still flushed red, his hair flattened to his skull with sweat. He still looked like he needed to throw up. He moved like an old man, and rolled onto his stomach, his elbows propping up his upper chest off the carpet. He made a face when he spotted the soiled carpet inches away. "You guys...tend to be jumpy."

Alec couldn't move, his limbs twitching even as he sat pressed back against the couch. He could only watch as Logan struggled to sit up. Logan grunted as he righted the wheelchair. But when it came time to pull himself up back into the chair, Logan's arms failed him.

"Want me to..." Alec couldn't stop stammering. His head kept jerking minutely, throwing his line of sight off.

Logan's Adam's apple bobbed as he shook his head. He tried again but a cough ripped through him and he fell back down with a wheeze.

"Here." Staggering to his feet, Alec gripped Logan by the arm, but he couldn't lift. His knees knocked together and he ended up clutching a handlebar to stay reasonably upright while still clutching Logan's arm. It was no longer clear who was holding up whom. 

His legs twisted awkwardly under him, Logan sat up straighter. He hooked one trembling arm over Alec's to pull himself up. Logan dropped into the wheelchair unceremoniously, halfway in. He rearranged his legs up with shaky hands and a grunt.

His knees finally had enough; Alec ended up dropping down next to Logan's chair.

Panting filled his ears. Alec thought something dirty and inappropriate should be said, but opening his mouth to speak felt like it would take too much effort.

Logan coughed, both hands clutching the top of the wheels. 

"That," rasped Logan, "was like the blind...leading the blind."

Alec tilted his face up and met Logan's flushed one.

A bubble burst inside his chest. Alec wearily dropped his head on Logan's knee, laughing as much as his raw throat allowed. Logan's sawing chuckle joined him. 

A shudder rippled down Alec's spine. He stopped laughing. His arm curled loosely around Logan's legs and groaned. His own legs twitched uncontrollably. He ground his face into Logan's thigh.

"All right." A hand dropped onto Alec's shoulder and gently squeezed. "For future reference, staying calm and no laughing."

Alec wearily nodded. He didn't bother to lift his head.

The wheelchair felt rigid against his shoulder. The small front left wheel pressed into his hip. The hand on his shoulder slipped away but left an imprint of heat Alec could still feel. He breathed through his nose. When the world and his stomach steadied, he finally dared to lift his head.

"Okay?" Logan murmured. He looked strange, sagging lopsided in his chair, his barn jacket crooked on his shoulders, his pullover twisted around his torso, his wire spectacles sitting crookedly on the tip of his nose. He didn't try to straighten himself out though, and kept eyes steady on Alec's face.

"That's funny," Alec croaked, "Was going to ask you the same qu-ques—damn it." He bowed his head over Logan's knees as a tremor ran down his spine like knuckles pressing nerves. "'uck..."

"I never seen them get this bad before," murmured Logan. He curled a warm hand on Alec's forehead. Alec shivered.

"Think you can get back on the couch? You need to lie down."

What he really needed was a mallet to the brain. Nevertheless, Alec struggled up. He swayed briefly. He curled both hands on a handlebar, shaking, but when he felt the wheelchair shimmy, he stepped back before he tipped Logan over.

A hand clasped over his before they could let go of the handlebar.

"Just hold on to that." The wheelchair sluggishly inched forward. "Use that because I really can't carry you there on my lap."

Again, Alec wanted to say something but he could only jerkily nod. He tried not to lean all his weight on the handlebars, eyes glued to the top of Logan's head to keep the nausea at bay. He followed drunkenly as the chair wheeled around to the front of the couch again. Alec crawled onto it gratefully. 

"I think I spilled the milk," Alec said into the cotton pillow cover. Musk, ink, the slight tinge of electrical ozone, the roasted bitterness of coffee, the dense scent of crushed wool. And then it hit him where he smelled it all before.

Logan; it smelled like Logan. Alec buried his face deeper into the pillow.

"I have another bottle." Logan could be heard picking up the shards of the bottle Alec had inadvertently kicked over. When his chair groaned as it moved away, Alec's head jerked up.

"Your blanket." Alec blinked, eyes burning as if he was staring at the sun too long.

"You cold?"

Alec burned in his joints but he nodded anyway.

Another creak and from the other side of the couch, Logan shook the fleece blanket clean and passed it over to Alec.

"Get some sleep," whispered Logan.

Alec wearily nodded as he wrapped the blanket around him. He took a deep breath, pressing his nose into the soft material. Sweat pooled at the base of his neck. He shivered. As he drifted, he listened to the sticky treads go from carpet to hardwood. He fell asleep to the almost melodic sound of Logan throwing out broken glass.

 

\---

 

_"A thousand."_

_He stared at the so called pharmacist. "What?"_

_"Thirty pills. One thousand."_

_"Last month it was six hundred," he argued._

_The slanted eyes blinked languidly at him._

_"Last month, only you want tryptophan. Now I have double the orders but no more supply. One thousand." The walking pill dispenser ran a hand down her yellowed lab coat._

_His heart thumped and stuttered a beat. "Double?" he croaked. "Who else is ordering?"_

_"No share patient information." Her dreads knocked together, beads clacking together like bone. "Patient rights."_

_Uh huh. He ran a tongue across his lower lip. "I'll pay you twelve hundred: for the pills and a name."_

_Eyes as dark as night grazed over him up and down. "I give you forty pills and a name. Fourteen hundred." Red lips glistened as she grinned. "Plus bonus."_

_He surveyed her, her perky breasts peeking through the lacy tank top, her slender waist, her long decorated nails curved like talons. He smiled, making sure his eyes lingered on her chest._

_"Bonus for you or bonus for me?" he drawled, his voice dipping lower and sure enough, she swallowed._

_"Maybe both?"_

_It was hard to smile with his stomach clamoring to give up yesterday's lunch. But he did as he mentally calculated what he'd need to lift to get another six hundred worthless US dollars._

_"I'll need time."_

_Her smile waned but when he reached over to run a finger across her lower lip, smearing red past her mouth, her pupils dilated._

_"We close at eight." Her mouth parted. "My place is open all night."_

_"I'll be there," he promised._

_When he returned four hours later though, he kept his fourteen hundred dollars. She didn't need his money as she was seen collecting a bulging paper sack of it in exchange for the slip of paper she gave to Colonel Lydecker._

__Logan's hushed voice drifted over the couch.

"...sounds good, but not tonight...No, not a good time. Tomorrow...we could meet tomorrow..."

Alec knuckled an eye as he surfaced. The gummy aftertaste of the goat's milk on his tongue made him grimace. Logan woke him up earlier and made him drink the whole damn quart. Oddly enough, he did feel better, but damn, that shit tasted _nasty_.

"The information's good, but not enough for my boss to work on..."

The blanket was now wedged between his face and the couch thanks to his fidgeting. Alec grumbled under his breath as he pulled it out and hugged it over his chest.

"...I'll check with my files and see..." Logan's breath stuttered into a pained hiss. He coughed. "Nothing, just a stitch. Wasn't watching where I was going."

A furrow folded between Alec's eyes. His chest pulled as he fuzzily recalled feeling a body underneath him, unable to throw him off. He'd always thought the human body was such an inconvenient sack of flesh and breakable bones. But he'd never felt it more vulnerable than when he felt Logan's chest heaved and stuttered under him. As his mind begrudgingly cleared further, he remembered hearing Logan call his name.

"I'll see you tomorrow then. Bye." Logan hung up his phone and coughed again, muffled this time, maybe behind a fist.

A little more pressure and Logan's chest would have easily caved under Alec's strength. And snapping a neck even when his target was supine on the floor was not a hard task. Alec knew exactly what was needed. If Logan hadn't finally told him to stand down...

Alec stiffened. His eyes snapped open and his breath quickened. He steeled himself and sat up.

"You're awake," Logan said needlessly.

"How did you know?" Alec asked, his voice low, his throat working.

"Dean?"

Alec rose higher on his knees at the couch. He almost deflated at the puzzled expression on Logan's face, the wide reddish stripe banded around his throat. But behind Logan, Alec's eyes caught a glimpse of the dining room and all the stacks of folders on top. His nostrils flared.

"What's going on?" Logan approached closer but when Alec turned back towards him, his face highlighted by the light in the kitchen, the wheelchair halted. "Know what?"

_"X-494, stand down!"_

"My designation," Alec bit out. "I'd never—how did you know?" The back of his throat soured when Logan swallowed. " _How_?"

Logan exhaled slowly. "I...some of my previous research...I looked up who Manticore was still actively searching for. My sources..."

"Your sources or your _boss_?" Alec snarled. "How much is Lydecker paying you?"

The eyes behind the thin rimmed glasses were almost colorless as they widened. "What? Lydecker? No..."

"Is that how you're supplementing your nice little life here?" Alec whipped out an arm across the living room. "That little trip you made before and nights before? What? Little one on one progress reports on how their little X-5 is faring in this fucked up world?"

Logan raised his hands in open surrender. "Dean, you're not thinking clearly right now. You have to stay calm—"

" _Don't give me orders_!" Alec clutched the back of the couch with one hand as he climbed off it. He stood there in front of Logan, his chest shrinking around him, his gut writhing in cold knots. He stalked over to Logan, forcing him to roll back into the beveled glass wall that corralled the computer area.

Alec flicked his gaze past Logan's shoulders to the computers. Next to him, Logan tensed.

"Dean, this isn't what you think," Logan said evenly. "I looked up your information because I was curious, that's all."

Alec's face contorted. The laugh that escaped his clenched jaw hurt. "Thought you weren't curious anymore."

"I..." Logan's mouth twisted. "I don't know what to tell you, only that this isn't about Manticore, it's about—"

"It's always about Manticore!"

His fist punched through the glass behind Logan and the divider splintered. The shards stayed intact, held together in a spider web of cracks.

Alec clamped a hand over the bruising on Logan's throat. He breathed harshly, his eyes burning as he stared hard at the bleak eyes gazing up at him. 

Trapped, Logan could only look at him, his voice cut off by Alec's grip over his throat. But he looked...resigned. Disappointed. 

Arrogant, traitorous prick.

His hand spasmed on its own, squeezing briefly and Logan's eyes swirled a pale blue green in response. His breath hitched. His pulse, under Alec's grip, quickened. Alec leaned forward.

The wheelchair inched back under his weight.

Alec's hand lost its strength. Vibrations thrummed through his fingers, forcing him to let go. He staggered away and glanced around.

"No one's coming for you." Logan stared at him but didn't come closer.

Alec choked off a harsh laugh. He stumbled towards the window. He could hear sirens but couldn't tell if they were coming closer or farther away. He scanned for his lines.

"Your rigging fell to the street."

Alec whipped around and there was that flicker across Logan's face again that bleached his eyes and made his stomach lurch. He wove around the couch, his boots uneven as he steered for the door.

A hand reached for him as he passed. "Dean..."

With a snarl, Alec twisted around and threw a punch. Cramps in his limbs made his fist veer off target, so it landed on the glass by Logan's ear.

The divider split and crashed into pieces around Logan.

Alec could hear Logan calling to him, ordering him to stop. It only made him run harder.

His legs burned by the time he reached his hideout, his chest a stretched band around a heart still beating too fast. He paced the room, faster and faster until he grew dizzy with rage, fear and everything else he didn't want to identify. He struggled out of his jacket and threw it across from him because he needed to throw something yet not alert the hoverdrones.

His jacket landed on the wall with a soft _smack_. As it slid to the floor, a baggie stuffed with a three month supply of tryptophan fell out of the pocket.


	5. Third's the Charm

The roof felt disturbingly unfamiliar now.

Alec sat on his heels, rocking absently on the balls of his feet as he contemplated the new harness and rigging he paid actually money for to replace the ones he lost. 

With each passing day, Alec had found it harder and harder to go back over the side of the building, into that window. There was always one more job to do (thanks to Eyes Only rabid trice daily whistle-blowing). Or one more john to satisfy. Or one more Steelhead to beat into a pulp. Or one more fight until suddenly three weeks had gone by, too long to do anything more than ignore it and hope for the urge to return goes away.

The baggie of tryptophan, buried at the bottom of his pack, was split up into three waterproof containers and labeled by the month. He rolled them into a new pair of socks and kept an eye on his supply carefully this time. He'd even made a list of all the places he could pick up goat's milk (but hopefully, it wouldn't come to that). 

But just as Alec pretty much figured it was better if he'd completely stayed away, an old newspaper tangled with his boots while he prowled the alleys at night.

Alec carefully pulled the article from his pockets. _Murderer Found Dead_ branded the three day old newspaper. His own face, or a good facsimile, was gray and clearly very dead with an oddly angled neck; captured in grisly black and white. 

Usually, he ignored the papers. Eyes Only's irregular cable hacks were entertaining enough and provided decent leads for his next pay off. But a restless scan of the article drew his eye to the killer's description as described by the kids who found his body in the woods with additional images on page A12. 

A barcode.

A journalist managed to take a picture of his neck before Seattle PD carted the body away. The pattern of straight thick and thin lines spurred speculation on whether John Doe belonged to a cult that targeted priests. Alec had stared at the article, in the middle of the street until the hum of a hoverdrone broke through his shock.

He was an X-5.

Twenty two murders, five or six in each big city, the dead priests left with a tattoo to the back of their necks. 

Eyes Only cut into broadcasts for days when the first murder was discovered in Seattle. He accused the military of covering up the murders, of hunting the killer with more than civic duty in mind. The guy even suggested the killer they sought might not even be the killer at all.

Alec snorted as he refolded the article. Well, the cable hacker was wrong about this one. It looked like the evidence was solid against the accused.

An X-5 just like him.

Alec was sure of it. The dead guy's tattoos were unfamiliar, but he recognized sub-dermal markings despite the photo's grainy quality. He gingerly touched his own barcode, the skin rough with scabbing he'd need to pick at very soon so it wouldn't heal yet. 

Peering over the ledge, Alec wondered if Logan's past curiosity might have uncovered a bunch of copies running around with his face on it. He knew he better assess the situation; the last thing he needed was to get arrested for something his clone did. That would be unfair and would also be irritating. But he needed to know: was this clone one of the original twelve? Or did he escape the same time Alec did after the Berrisford mission? Did he have a Rachel in his mission too?

The new rigging felt stiff in his hands as he dropped it over the side of the ledge. It looked too straight, too inflexible for the job. Maybe he should hold off; using untested equipment wasn't strategically wise. He should wait. Yeah. He should come back later.

Alec stood there, his throat working, the harness coupling cool in his hand. Then he took a deep breath and hitched it onto the rope.

 

\---

 

The window was open. _Very_ open.

Alec's brow furrowed as he considered the window, open wide to its fullest. The morning breeze whistled sharply around him and bellowed as it rushed through the opening. 

It felt strange stepping through the gaping window. Alec stood on the carpet that smelled powdery clean, recently vacuumed, the wind a solid force against his back.

When Alec shut the window, muting the wind's hollow roars, he heard Logan.

"...There must be someone else you could talk to!"

Alec hesitantly fingered his harness and edged back towards the window. It didn't sound like a good time.

"Someone in the morgue must have seen something!" Logan's voice wobbled.

Alec stilled in front of the window. He rubbed a hand over his shoulder. He chewed his lower lip. He turned away from the window.

"So there was nothing left? No photos, no ID, no report?" Logan's voice cracked. " _Nothing_?" 

The familiar sound of the tread approached. Alec gulped. He stood there, coiling up his line when Logan rolled by him, not looking up, his knuckles bone white as he disconnected the call. 

Then he grabbed his earpiece and threw it away from him.

Logan sucked in a shuddering breath. He froze. His head lifted and slowly, his chair turned around.

Alec shifted from foot to foot. He scratched a spot on his jaw.

"Hey."

Logan stared.

"I uh..." Alec cleared his throat. "Look...you were right before about me being jumpy. Jumped right out of the sector with the wrong conclusion." He frowned. Logan was still staring at him.

"Something on my face?"

Logan blinked. His face contorted and he turned away, facing Alec after a moment with a gray expression that drew Alec closer.

"Hey, you okay?" Alec reached out a hand. Logan looked about ready to keel out of his chair. He stilled when Logan cleared his throat.

"You're..." The words came out strangled. "You're alive..."

Alec frowned. "Yeah?" His eyes widened. He hurriedly pulled out the article. "You saw thi—of course, you saw. You look like a reading kind of guy—No, this wasn't me."

Logan stared at him as if expecting to see right through him. His hands curled tight over his wheels, so tight, his arms shook from the strain.

"There was a picture..." Logan took a deep breath, but his breathing seemed to get worse not better. "They said you killed—"

"That wasn't me!" Alec blurted out. "I didn't kill them!"

"I know."

Alec started. "What?"

Logan's head bowed. He shook it violently to shake the words out. "Suspected this hunt was a Manticore ploy to draw you out. Then the papers suddenly printed this picture of your—of _his_ body..." Swallowing hard, Logan braced a hand to his head.

"You all right?" Alec almost recoiled the moment his fingers touched Logan's chilled skin. "Jesus. Hold on." He ran into Logan's bedroom, paused at the sight of the unmade bed before he yanked out the fleece coverlet from the bottom of the closet.

"Here." Alec knew he was probably wrapping it too tight around Logan's shoulders but, shit, the guy's skin was like ice. He briskly rubbed Logan's arms up and down. Logan blinked owlishly at him.

"He had a barcode," Logan croaked.

"It's not my barcode," Alec said, nearly shouting as his own insides twisted from the rasp in Logan's voice. It was hoarse and depleted like he'd been screaming at the top of his lungs for days. Alec knew that feeling. "That's not my barcode. How could you think it was me?"

"It was your picture," Logan said faintly even as color slowly seeped back into his cheeks. But he still felt cold. Alec scrubbed Logan's arms hard enough to probably break skin. 

"And there was a barcode..."

Alec gripped Logan's shoulders, drawing Logan to look up finally. "Not. My. Barcode," Alec told him firmly.

Logan stared at him, his eyes still bleached behind his glasses. Alec shook him.

"Not your barcode," Logan repeated airlessly. A light flickered in the dull gaze.

Alec wanted to shout "Yes" but instead his voice lowered. "No."

Logan's words breathed out crumpled. "Not dead." He patted Alec's chest, testing its solidity. 

The desperate hope in Logan's expression shook Alec. His chest constricted at the ache he felt seeing Logan's face, viscerally recognizing what Alec didn't dare acknowledge out loud. Alec wanted to look away and yet he couldn't.

The smirk on his face felt like it cracked miles of skin.

"I'm real," Alec quipped unsteadily. He briefly squeezed Logan's shoulders again. He winked and waggled his eyebrows. 

"Want to pinch me and see?"

Logan blinked. His chin dipped as he huffed out a crackling laugh. Then he surprised the hell out of both of them when he dropped his forehead onto Alec's shoulder with a shaky exhale.

 

\---

 

Alec burned the article. 

Only because he needed kindling. Logan apparently forgot to order more pressed firewood and the five dry stumps by the hearth weren't going to burn without some sort of kindling. The window had been left open too long; the wind never seemed to have gone away.

"I'm going to go mess up your kitchen and steal your silverware, okay?" Alec said over his shoulder. He squinted into the fridge. _Let me guess. Wasn't in the mood again? Geez, Heather._

Logan blankly watched the fire, seated on the carpet to be closer to its warmth, his back propped up against the couch Alec moved to brace him from behind. 

"Hey, did you hear what I said?" Alec stood at the boundary of the kitchen area. 

The fleece blanket slipped off Logan's right shoulder but Logan didn't seem to notice. He gazed at the fire like it was showing naked wrestling.

"Cale."

Painstakingly, Logan lifted his head and stared.

Alec raised the mugs in his hands. "Coffee? Milk? Water?" 

Logan nodded. His head rested back on the couch, but judging the uneven rise and fall of his chest, Alec seriously doubted Logan fell asleep.

There was only a mug in the sink, some half-eaten sandwiches stowed in the fridge and left to dry. So Alec decided on heating up the goat's milk, its bottles clustered in the back. 

"Here." Alec crouched by Logan. He shoved the mug into Logan's cool hands.

Logan roused. He squinted down into the contents.

"Unless you're going to tell me my fortune, you better drink it," Alec groused. "I slaved over your damn overpriced stove."

Woodenly, Logan brought the mug to his mouth. He grimaced but drained it to the bottom. He gestured towards the kitchen with his empty cup.

"Bottom shelf, by the knives," he rasped.

Curious, Alec went to check. His eyebrow arched at the tinted crystal bottle of whiskey. He shrugged. Not that it'd do anything for him personally, but okay.

Alec's eyebrow rose higher when Logan just took the bottle from him and poured a generous amount into his refilled mug. He frowned when Logan lowered his mug again, already half empty. At least Logan wasn't so pale anymore. A flush washed up his bristly jaw. 

The inebriated scruffy look suits him, Alec thought before emptying the dregs into Logan's mug.

"About...about last time..." Alec hedged. 

"Last time?" Logan said wearily as he hugged the mug towards his chest. He shivered. Alec put the last of the logs into the fire. It flared briefly.

"Yeah." Alec squirmed where he sat opposite of Logan. "Listen, about that night..."

"It's fine." Logan's expression hidden by the mug, Alec could only gauge him by his flat voice. "You thought I could have been with Lydecker." Logan's gaze was a fathomless sea that stayed on him when he finally looked up. "You've been on the run for a long time."

The benediction should have made him feel better. It didn't. Alec studied Logan. Even though it'd been weeks, he thought he could still see the red stripe on Logan's throat. 

Alec averted his gaze. 

"I over-reacted," Alec mumbled. He took a drink from his mug, screwed up his face and then copied Logan's flavor enhancement: a cup of booze with some goat's milk.

"No. Maybe. Okay, you so did," Logan confirmed. He offered Alec a faint smile. "I get it. The one thing I get is paranoia."

"I'm not paranoid," Alec muttered, "Everyone really is out to get me."

"Not me."

Alec stole a look over to Logan. Still bundled within the blanket, his ashen pallor a canvas for the shadows the fire made from his glasses, Logan watched Alec with a neutral expression. Waiting.

The tenseness that'd had been residing in his spine since that night, when he first broke into the penthouse months ago, eased a fraction. 

"No," Alec whispered, his throat tight, "not you."

Logan responded to the acknowledgment with a lift of his mug and a crinkle of his eyes. But as if the mug suddenly weighed a ton, he lowered it onto the carpet with a sigh. 

"They wouldn't let me see the body."

Alec looked sharply over to Logan and the troubled twist of his mouth as he moodily stared at the fire.

"When the news first broke..." Logan pinched a spot on his nose under his glasses. When the spectacles dropped back over his face, the lens reflected golden firelight, covering his eyes. Logan looked like he was miles away now.

"I checked with a friend at the morgue; she said the body was claimed before an autopsy could be performed." There was a lengthy pause. "I found out later they were presented with military paperwork, but no one could find copies of it anymore."

Bile soured the back of Alec's throat. "Manticore."

With a weary nod and a sigh to match it, Logan raised his mug, stopping when he realized it was empty. He reached over for the whiskey bottle by his knee and poured the rest into his mug.

"If you get drunk, I'm leaving that cute ass of yours on the carpet," Alec warned, watching as Logan took a tentative sip. The guy didn't seem to hear him, shrugging into the blanket covering him.

"Still cold?" Alec cautiously reached over and gripped the arch of Logan's socked foot. He frowned and glanced at the fireplace. No more firewood. Damn. He shrugged out of his jacket and draped it over Logan's legs, making sure his feet were tucked in.

"Can't seem to get warm," Logan mumbled. His eyes flickered towards the jacket and an unreadable look passed over him before he glanced away.

Alec waved towards the windows. "Well, if you hadn't left my window open wide enough for a hoverdrone to—Wait." He furrowed his brow. "You thought I was dead, right?" He wanted to take back his words when devastation flitted across Logan's features. 

Logan nodded jerkily. "Yeah."

Alec scratched his chin. "So if you thought I was fertilizer, why did you leave the window open for me?"

"I..." Logan appeared puzzled as well, frowning mildly to himself as he mentally reviewed his actions. "I'm not really sure..."

"Oh," Alec drawled, "that doesn't sound crazy at all." His chest eased when Logan glowered at him over his spectacles. But when Logan's face fell, so did Alec's smirk.

"I didn't see your body," Logan murmured. He made a self-deprecating shrug. "Guess there was a part of me who didn't believe you were dead and I thought..." Alec winced at his unsteady laugh. 

"I thought if you were alive, maybe you'll come by, even though I knew last time could count as goodbye and I didn't know if you might come in the morning or night or..." Logan shook his head, his mouth twisted in a wry smile.

"You're right; that doesn't sound crazy at all."

Alec plucked at his boot laces. "So you left that window open since you heard for...three days?" He ran his tongue across his lower lip. "Even though you knew I might be dead."

"Wasn't sure. I didn't see your body. I tried to check if the police processed the scene, maybe have clearer pictures, anything." Logan's shoulders slumped under the weight of the blanket. "I just wasn't sure."

"Okay," Alec managed lightly, "For future reference, leave that window closed during the day. If I come by then, I'll just disarm the alarms. They're not worth shit."

"They're supposed to be burglary proof," muttered Logan.

"Maybe, but not X-5 proof," Alec scoffed. He sobered when he noticed Logan seemed to be listing. "Tired?" 

"A little." Logan appeared annoyed about it.

Alec wanted to sit here, by the fire, staring at Logan and for once feeling like he could sit in one spot all night without needing to scope out the exits first. But Logan was swaying as if he couldn't decide which would be better: falling into the fireplace or over Alec's lap. Unfortunately, it looked like the former was winning.

"Come on, bed time for porn writers." Alec reluctantly unwound from the carpet. He brought the wheelchair within reach. He stood there, hesitating as Logan stared at it like it was suddenly eight feet tall.

"Uh...want some help?" Alec waited for the usual negative.

Logan tilted his head up, squinting blearily at Alec. He looked away, his voice casual. "Sure."

"What?" Alec blinked, not sure he had heard correctly.

"Did you develop telekinesis while you were away?" Logan joked weakly when Alec didn't move. His mouth crooked to a small smile then faded uncertainly.

Alec cleared his throat. "Debating how I can get away with copping a feel," he returned breezily and Logan huffed. Alec hesitated before slowly crouching down. He leaned forward and shit, maybe the whiskey was affecting him after all, because his mouth was suddenly dry and his limbs felt sluggish.

The closer he drew to Logan, the darker Logan's eyes became. He tracked Alec's approach and his hand as it reached and slipped around to settle on his lower back. Logan's throat worked visibly before he stretched out a hand to curl over Alec's right shoulder. He tensed when Alec slipped his other arm around but then relaxed.

"Ready?" rasped Alec by his ear. There was the scent of dry paper, coffee, and the sour tang of the whiskey filling his nostrils.

Logan's hand tightened over his shoulder. His left reached back for the wheelchair. 

In an unspoken count of three, Alec lifted and Logan pulled. Alec could feel Logan's torso tensing in his hold, his exhale on Alec's throat as he was hauled up and hoisted into the chair. Logan sagged into his seat and Alec couldn't bring himself to pull away.

Still half-crouched, Alec still had his arms wrapped around the lean torso, his chin so close to Logan's temples, that all he needed to do was tilt his head to mouth the soft spikes of hair.

The room went quiet. The wind stopped rattling the windows. Even the fire stopped noisily eating the wood and spitting out sparks. 

Logan breathed hard, most likely from the exertion. His fingers dug briefly into Alec's shoulder. His chest expanded against Alec's ribs. He felt warm, warmer now from the fire and the whiskey.

Throat working, Alec tightened his hold around Logan, edging closer into his personal space.

Logan's fingers on his shoulder flexed. His breath was hot on Alec's clavicle. 

The hairs tickled Alec's chin. His skin now felt was too tight around his bones. He dipped his head and found Logan's head would fit perfectly on the crook of his shoulder, his partially opened mouth warm and enticing over a spot on Alec's neck. The faint warmth traveled down, tingling in his belly and settled heavy in his cock.

Alec's head lowered again. His thumbs stroked the ridge of Logan's spine. 

Logan's breath caught.

His heart hammered in Alec's chest. His thumbs pressed deeper, sliding lower until they reached Logan's waistline.

Logan tensed. His fingers went slack on Alec's shoulder then slipped off.

Alec blinked. The sound seemed to have returned to the room. The fire popped in the hearth.

"So, ah..." Alec stammered. "T-there you go."

"Yeah. Sure." Logan coughed. He gave Alec's arm an awkward pat. "...Thanks."

"Sure. No problem. Uh yeah, no big deal. It's ah...cool. Fine." _Oh shut the hell up already, 494._

Alec straightened and hastily stepped back. He retrieved the fleece blanket and wordlessly followed Logan into the bedroom. He didn't offer to help Logan transfer to his bed; he figured one helping hand a day was the most the guy will tolerate. Nevertheless, he found himself tugging free the rumpled duvet, tucking the fleece blanket first around his legs before Logan wearily drew the covers up.

"Want me to read you a bedtime story?" Alec grinned, leaning back against the wall by the door.

"No thank you." 

"Okay, want to read _me_ a bedtime story then?" Alec's smirk widened at Logan's half mast glower at him. "I want sound effects though, Heather."

Logan's scoff was muffled under the covers. His eyes were a cloudy mix of green and blue as they watched Alec.

Alec's smile faded. "Get some sleep, Cale," he murmured. He turned to leave when he heard Logan's mumble.

"Glad it wasn't your barcode."

His foot froze one step out the door. He spun around but Logan's chest already rose and fell in the slow even pattern of sleep. He stood at the foot of the bed, throat inexplicably tight.

Logan's forehead lined and he murmured distressingly. His hand reached for something before flopping over the side of the bed.

Alec sat down gingerly on the edge of the bed and touched Logan's dangling hand, tucking it back under the covers. Whatever was bothering Logan's sleep must have passed, because he settled pretty much after that. Alec hesitantly reached over and slipped Logan's glasses off before they were crushed into the pillow. He folded them and left them on the nightstand within reach. He headed for the door again, but stopped and watched Logan for a few more minutes

The fire was down to embers when Alec finally exited the bedroom. Instead of putting it out, he sat cross-legged in front of it to watch the flames greedily eat the last of its fuel. He thought about the tryptophan in his bag (he'd never thanked Logan yet; Logan never brought it up). He thought about the newspaper article he forgot to ask Logan about.

He thought about a window left wide open for three days.

When the fire sputtered out, Alec slipped out the window for the roof again. The fire though, seemed to have curled inside him and stayed warm and full all night.

 

\---

 

"Thought we agreed to only leave the window open a crack only at night," Alec complained as soon as he stuck his head into the living room before he hopped in. 

Logan's head whipped up from the laptop screen he was reading from. He appeared startled and could only utter a wordless sound. Wisps of condensation escaped from behind a thick gray scarf coiled possessively around him.

"What?" Alec slid the gaping window shut behind him but not before a few snowflakes darted in. He scowled at the intruders and fanned his hand through them.

Clearing his throat, Logan shook his head. "Nothing. Wasn't sure..."

"What?" repeated Alec, louder. It was a little like déjà vu to have Logan staring at him like that again.

Thin shoulders rose briefly. "Thought maybe I dreamt it all yesterday. Woke up and you weren't around, so..." Logan pulled down his glasses and took a long time cleaning them with the t-shirt under his navy pullover. 

"Oh." Alec grimaced. "Sorry. Had to bounce, get some jobs in before taking a break." At Logan's questioning look, he clarified, "Didn't want to show my face around so soon. Plus," he announced as he hefted his backpack. "I came bearing gifts!" 

He could feel Logan staring at him (hopefully staring at his rear because that was his best feature) when he went around him. He pulled out his loot and dumped it on the kitchen island. "Hey, can you do that chicken and carrot thing you did last time?" He smacked his lips loudly.

Logan parted the folds of the canvas bag, warily watching it for anything to jump out.

"You got pork chops?"

"Got some fresh made sausages and beets too." Alec frowned into the fridge. "Don't you ever have anything in here?" He pulled out the sandwiches he saw occupying the fridge yesterday. Yuck. He dumped them with a face. 

"Where did you get sausages in this economy?" Logan frowned at the links.

"I broke into the German embassy." Alec rolled his eyes at Logan's eyebrow. "Fine. Whenever there's a fancy gig in there, guy in the kitchen skims off the extra food and sells it out of the back of his truck."

"So you want me to make a roasted chicken...with pork chops?" Logan asked skeptically. 

"And beets?" Alec supplied hopefully. 

Logan shook his head and gave Alec a look.

"What?"

"What's the occasion?"

_Because I'm getting tired of looking at your cheekbones_ , Alec wanted to say. He grinned toothily. "What else? This is my wake!" His smile faltered at Logan's glower. "Too early to joke about it?"

Logan pursed his lips. "Just get me that skillet over there."

 

\---

 

Unfortunately, Chef Logan couldn't pull off what he did last time but the pork chops stuffed with sausage and the candied beets smelled just as good. 

Logan sputtered when Alec moved the files off the dining table onto the floor until Alec reminded him that all X-5s were blessed (or cursed) with eidetic memory. Besides, eating from off the floor was bad for his digestion.

It was strange though, Alec mused, to be sitting across looking directly at Logan. Logan seemed to agree; he kept glancing around as if he lost something.

"This is good," Alec mumbled as he forked a good chunk of pork and beets into his mouth. "What do you call it?"

"Pork chops," Logan deadpanned as he chewed thoughtfully on a piece.

"Don't you guys normally have some fancy names for the food?"

"You guys?" echoed Logan.

"You know..." Alec waved his fork with a chunk of chop speared on it. He gestured it like a wand around their surroundings. "Rich people." He popped the morsel in his mouth and rewarded Logan with an appreciative burp. Logan didn't appear grateful.

"Come on," invited Alec. He bit back a grin as Logan took another bite, moving it inside his mouth, puffing out his cheeks briefly. "What would you call it? Something French? Maybe _échine de porc Logan_?"

Logan blinked at the French accent Alec knew was perfect; thanks to the clever folks of Manticore for that one. It seemed like Logan came to the same conclusion and concentrated on swirling the white wine in his glass instead.

"Well?"

Flecks of gold in his eyes caught the reflection off his wine glass as Logan's mouth upturned at a corner. He cut another piece, stuck it in his mouth and Alec found himself staring at Logan's lower lip as he chewed deliberately.

"Okay," Logan said finally. He waited until Alec straightened. "It's pork chops..." he paused, "with beets." Logan started when a crumble of sausage bounced off his chin.

"For a writer, that wasn't particularly creative, Heather," Alec groused. He waited until Logan drank from his wine glass before adding, "You write them all missionary?" He snickered when Logan sputtered.

Logan grumbled under his breath, which only made Alec grin wider because a flustered Logan was _much_ more interesting to look at than dopey broody Logan Cale.

"Is this all we're going to talk about?" 

Huh? Alec furrowed his brow. "What else should we be talking about?" There was a sinking feeling when Logan pulled off his glasses with a sigh.

"How about who died wearing your face?"

"What's there to talk about?" Alec retorted. "The guy looked like me; he wasn't. He's dead; I'm not." He speared another piece of pork and gnawed on it, scowling. 

"He looked just like you." Alec's ire faded at Logan's voice. "He _could_ have been you."

"He wasn't me." Alec clamped his mouth shut to keep from shouting.

"He could be a sibling or—"

The fork clattering onto Alec's plate stopped Logan short.

"He couldn't be a sibling," Alec ground out, "Because X-5's were pieced together in test tubes then stuck in rented uteruses for a measly twenty grand each." He picked up his fork again and stabbed a large piece of meat. "We're an expensive dime a dozen. Much I like to think I'm unique, there's probably a bunch of me running around." Alec shrugged as he glared at his food. "None of my business though. So long they stay out of my way, I could care less."

Awkward silence hovered between them. Alec ignored the heat of Logan's stare as Alec polished off his food.

"Twenty thousand," Logan suddenly said in a quiet voice.

"What about it?" Alec muttered as he moved the bones around on his plate.

"How did you know it was twenty thousand?"

Alec mashed a slice of beet into his plate. He sawed his food until he realized he was sawing bone. His mouth flattened.

"I might be able to find out who your moth—" Logan's words died when Alec's head shot up. But then he set his jaw and pushed on. "There were records, Dean, of surrogate mothers, labeled as volunteers that I might be able to access."

"You did this for your X-5 buddy?" Alec could feel his face twisting, could see it from Logan's intense gaze. He curled his fingers tighter around his knife. Why did Logan have to go ahead and ruin everything? 

"The mother didn't want to give up her baby."

Alec stilled. He stared at the knife in his hand.

"I couldn't track down the mother but there were people there who remembered her. Not everyone wanted the money in the end. I can't guarantee your mother was one of them but if you want, I can try to find out."

Alec reached over and stabbed the next chop to his plate. He cut off a piece, its stuffing spilling out onto the plate. He gathered up the pieces.

"Aren't you curious?" Logan asked quietly.

"No," Alec stressed. He raised his head and very deliberately, stuffed a morsel in his mouth and chewed. He gestured towards Logan. "And I thought you stopped being curious as well."

"That was before," Logan said tightly, "I realized I could be seeing another picture of you dead somewhere."

Alec blinked. His stomach did a weird somersault. He swallowed the food suddenly stuck in his throat. "That wasn't me. That barcode was obviously not me."

"Obviously," muttered Logan.

The back of his neck itched, which was strange because it stopped bothering him yesterday. Alec stared at Logan, who was collecting all the remaining food to the side of his plate.

Alec set down his fork. It wasn't like he could do anything about it right now anyway.

"Come out into the living room." It was like Alec was watching himself telling Logan.

"What is it?" Logan set down his fork and wheeled out from under the dining table.

Alec shook his head as he stopped by the fireplace. Logan halted just out of the dining area.

"What's going on?"

Alec shrugged out of his jacket. He forced himself not to throw it but drape it carefully over the couch.

"Dean?"

Taking a deep breath, Alec curled his fingers around the hems of his shirts, rolled them up along his torso, past his shoulders, over his head.

Logan sucked in a breath. The wheelchair creaked back a breadth.

Alec was vaguely aware his shirts dropped to the carpet somewhere when he turned around to face Logan. Wide hazel eyes, ringed with blue stared up at him, tracking him as he drew closer. 

Stopping short of the wheelchair, Alec crouched down and swung Logan's leg rests aside, taking care to make sure Logan's legs didn't abruptly drop with the loss of support. Logan wore sneakers, but his ankles today were bare.

"Dean." Logan sounded unsure. "What are you doing?"

His hands shook like he didn't take enough tryptophan today. Alec slid them up Logan's calves. Interestingly, he could feel muscles bunching underneath worn jersey pants, flexing minutely. 

"You feel that?" Alec murmured as his hands traveled and stopped under Logan's knees.

Logan nodded. "A little," he said unsteadily.

Alec raised his gaze and studied Logan. Carefully, still watching the whirl of emotions that went through Logan's face, Alec nudged Logan's knees apart and shuffled close enough to kneel between them.

Logan's left hand shot out to clamp over Alec's hand over his knee. It wasn't clear if it was to push it away or not.

"I want to show you something," Alec told him. He peeled Logan's unresisting hand away.

Then he turned around.

"I don't understand." 

Alec reached behind him and peeled the old bandage off. It took three tries. When the gauze fell away, the thick, rough strips of scabs went along with it. From Logan's startled sound, Alec knew he guessed correct: the skin had already healed completely.

"This is _my_ barcode," Alec said. He stared at the windows that lined the living room. He tipped his head forward and tried not to think about how chilled his back felt. He clawed his thighs and waited.

Logan didn't say anything; it didn't sound like he was breathing even. Alec glanced over his shoulder to see Logan, looking freaked out, his hands on his wheels like he was debating running Alec over with his chair to make his escape.

"Might as well learn the difference," Alec said brightly. He squared his shoulders back and caught Logan gulping, hard. 

"It's okay," Alec said, sobering. "Take a good look; memorize my barcode, all right?"

"Us mere mortals," Logan huffed in a wobbly voice, "don't have such a great memory as you."

Alec rolled his eyes. He turned back around and reached behind to point at the left side of the tattoo. "See that? I have a closer cluster of lines here, a trio of thick lines in the middle." When Logan wouldn't move, Alec shuffled back until his feet were tucked under Logan's chair. 

"You don't need to..."

"It's fine." Alec stared at the carpet under his knees. He could feel Logan's knees framing his torso on both sides and somehow, he felt a little better for it. He moved his finger to the right, guided by the many nights he held up a mirror to it, to stare at its reflection on the other mirror, willing it to stay away. It never did and it felt oddly like tissue paper over his neck under Logan's stare.

"Here," Alec rasped, "this pair of clusters is...is my designation." He could feel Logan's gaze sweeping over the lines. His throat worked. "This is where it's indicated I'm X-494."

"Where does it say you're 'Dean'?" Logan was whispering for some reason.

Nowhere, actually. Alec felt that twinge in his chest again. "They don't give us names." Alec tried to get his fingers to relax; they felt like they were drawing blood. "Just designations."

"So your name is your own."

Alec canted his head. "I guess so. Yeah, you could say that." Deep in his stomach, a knot loosened. "My name," he murmured. He stretched back his hand and patted the tattoo. "But you should familiarize yourself with this." He let his smirk bleed through. "So you won't freak out next time."

The stiffness in Logan's reply was laughable. "I didn't freak out."

"You left a window open for three days in winter for a dead guy." Alec leaned back, until his shoulder blade could feel the brushed softness of Logan's sweatpants. The warmth there seeped into Alec's skin. "Okay. Let's say you over-reacted."

"Fine," Logan grumbled. There was a lengthy pause. Alec could hear him running his tongue over his lower lip. He was tempted to turn around. But he could also feel Logan's stare, boring down on him like it was branding over his barcode.

"Could I..." Logan's chair eased back a fraction. "Never mind."

Alec reached back and captured the hand he could feel retreating. He tugged the hand to the back of his neck and left it there. He kept his eyes forward.

"Left," Alec said quietly. He gulped as he felt Logan's hesitant fingers trailing to the indicated side. "See how they're so close together, almost a solid line?" He felt a callused pointer finger tracing the lines, a minute sharp edge from his nail as it followed the lines like a road map.

"No scar," Logan murmured. His finger wandered beyond the boundaries of Alec's mark to gingerly test the unblemished skin. Alec's throat constricted. The heat from Logan's finger wormed under his skin and shimmied downward. 

"Makes it a bitch to get rid of," Alec stammered out. He plucked at the growing hole in his jeans. "And damn expensive."

"Must hurt like hell too." The finger skimmed back to the center of the barcode. "You have to dig deep enough to create such a long lasting scab."

"I'm a fast healer." Alec shrugged and Logan's finger was dragged down to the top of a shoulder blade. The tingling warmth now settled on his lower back. Alec's abdomen flexed.

"Doesn't mean it doesn't hurt." 

Alec shut his eyes, picturing Logan's intent expression as the rough callus on his finger drifted to the right. 

"See?" Alec murmured. "That cluster? Five thin, three thick, one thin." He absently curled a hand around Logan's bare ankle before it could knock into the right front castor wheel. He felt Logan's thumb brushing up over his designation. 

"Did that hurt?"

"What?" groaned Alec. He shook out of his haze. The sensation of Logan's fingers resting on the top of his spine like keys of a piano rippled through him like a heat wave. "What?" he rasped, more alert.

"Did it hurt when I touched it? You're shaking." Logan's hand covered the barcode.

"Cold." Alec made a point to sniffle loudly. "You keep leaving that damn window open. It's drafty here." He stared at Logan's shadow eclipsing his on the carpet. "Think you got it now? My barcode?" When Logan didn't answer, he twisted around and found Logan studying him. Alec's gaze slid away, the rest of his body following and he stared at the carpet again.

"Better get it down good," Alec said gruffly. He suppressed the instinct to flinch when Logan's warm fingers rested over the tattoo again. His reaction didn't make sense. There was no nerve bundle or wound there, just genetically encoded skin pigmentation, branding him just like all his so-called siblings Logan was convinced he had existed.

It was like a small sunbeam brushing along the nape of his neck, lingering on the vertebra that topped his spine before disappearing into the layer of muscle on his back. The touch tingled, like an old fashioned telegraph, tap tap tap, a pinpoint of warmth. The sluggish fire in his lower back flared and stretched around to pool between his legs. Alec fidgeted, spreading his legs wider as he grew lightheaded.

_Shit, this was a bad idea_ , Alec fuzzily thought as Logan's finger, the one with the callus, circled his mark tracing over line for line, as if committing it to memory by touch. Alec's breath shrank to quiet pants. His thighs quivered from keeping him still, stopping him from...from what? All he could think was how close Logan was and wondered how it would feel to have Logan lean forward, press his mouth over the barcode or simply exhale over it.

The heavy heat between his legs was painful now. Alec glanced down and grimaced. It was a really good thing he was facing away from Logan. 

The touch paused, stroked the bottom of the mark. and Alec couldn't help himself; he groaned. He curled his hands on both ankles, his palms cupping the slender tendons and felt the weak echo of a pedal pulse. Alec closed his eyes, rode out the ache between his legs, rocking gingerly for the friction of the thick material of his jeans. He found himself rubbing a thumb on Logan's right ankle, on the bony jut that felt strong yet so fragile and cool under his touch.

Logan's fingers abruptly pulled away and Alec made a sound of protest deep in his throat.

"Dean..." Logan said, strained. "I can't go back anymore..."

Alec swallowed. He glanced down at the pale foot he cradled against his hip. It flexed weakly. He pressed it closer to him.

"It's okay," Alec whispered, gulping.

"My wheelchair—"

"It doesn't matter."

"But it does."

Alec's throat worked. He rose higher on his knees, pivoted around until he stood between Logan's, hands slowly sliding on top of the ones curled over the wheels.

"It doesn't matter," Alec repeated.

Logan was a picture of misery, the soft line of his lower lip curled downward, his eyes bleak. Logan stared at him, his throat working. He glanced down at Alec's hands, turned his head, shaking it.

"No, no, no," Alec pleaded. He leaned closer, the tip of his nose bumping into Logan's brow. Alec inhaled; he smelled Logan's shampoo. His hands drifted up to settle flat on strong quads. The muscles jumped under his palms.

"Dean..." Logan sounded strained.

"It's okay," Alec murmured. His mouth skimmed carefully over the scruff on Logan's jaw. He smoothed his hands over Logan's thighs. 

"Dean, I can't go back anymore." 

Alec felt both lightheaded and hyped up at the same time. "It doesn't matter," Alec coaxed. He moved his hands to slip under Logan' thighs, to pull him forward, to smash his mouth over Logan's and swallow his protests over and over until Logan gave in.

Logan pushed at Alec weakly. "There's no more room."

It took a second before the fog in Alec's head cleared. He stared stupidly at Logan. 

"What?" Alec glanced behind Logan. He had backed Logan up into the glass partition that stood between the dining area and the living room. Wheelchair brakes had nothing against a horny as hell X-5.

Alec could feel heat creeping up his neck. He abruptly twisted around, looking for his shirts. _Geez, 494, grow a pair, will you?_ He was not a blushing virgin. What the hell? Where the hell were his damn shirts?

Finally spotting the shirts by the couch, Alec snatched them off the carpet, cursing under his breath as he tried to figure out which was front and back.

"Uh...You okay?"

"Sure. Why wouldn't I be?" Alec managed and he was grateful to hear his voice sounded steady, nonchalant because no big deal, right? No big deal.

"Thanks for showing me the bar code." Logan sounded so damn casual as if they weren't one step away from showing more than bar codes on the carpet.

Alec nodded jerkily as he thrust— _poor_ choice of words—his head through his t-shirts. He nearly jumped to his feet until he remembered it would give Logan a front row seat of the torpedo trying to escape his jeans. Fuck, his legs were shaking too. Maybe he should have taken two pills this morning.

"Wait."

Alec froze. His eyes darted from the fireplace to the carpet, which he looked away from because the carpet led him to Logan's legs.

"Come here."

Alec moistened his mouth. He straightened higher in his kneeling position and turned around. He watched Logan lean forward, he followed.

Alec started when Logan dropped his gray scarf over his shoulders. 

"No one is going to think twice about you wearing this in the winter." Logan tugged the long material until the ends lined up and flipped one end over Alec's shoulder. "Should be safe if you wear this." Logan smiled tightly. "Better?"

_Hell no_ , but Alec grimaced back. He glanced down at the scarf and tentatively squeezed the material. It smelled like Logan's sandalwood soap, coffee, and musky from where Logan's exhales were caught within its thick folds. 

Alec absently rubbed the washed material between his fingers. "Actually," he said slowly, "Yeah, this could work."

"At least you don't have to look for another tattoo parlor so soon," Logan told him. "It's too bad about your guy in Chinatown."

"Huh?" Alec glanced up but he averted his eyes as soon as he caught Logan's look.

Logan shrugged. "Haven't you heard? Seattle PD raided his shop yesterday and found sixteen kilos of black market pharmaceuticals."

"What?" Alec glanced up. 

Another shrug. "His shop got shut down and he's awaiting trial. Could be going away for ten years, at least."

"Poor guy," drawled Alec. He smirked. "Couldn't happen to a nicer asshole." He examined the stitching of the scarf and discovered no label.

"Wait..."

"What?"

"Did...Did you _knit_ this?"

Logan cocked an eyebrow at him. "Mrs. Moreno did."

"The Chinese hockey lady upstairs?"

"Chinese what? Never mind. She made this for me a couple days ago. Except she forgot she'd already knitted one for me last month to thank me for my help after her fall."

Alec crushed the yarn into his grasp and more of Logan's unique scent escaped. 

"Too bad," Alec murmured. Other hands than Logan's touched this.

"Why?"

Alec gave Logan his best leer. "I think knitting gives the hands _great_ dexterity."

Blank, Logan stared at Alec but it was clear he got it when comprehension flipped his frown. He rolled his eyes. 

And just like that, it felt like a cloud had disbursed over them.

"Don't you ever quit?" 

"Nope," Alec quipped, "I can go on for a _very_ long time." He snickered at the half-hearted glare Logan shot him over his glasses. 

Alec stood and stretched as he shrugged back into his jacket. He rearranged the scarf so it didn't feel like a noose. 

"This is great. Gives me time to pull a couple more jobs before I..." Alec stilled. His eyes snapped to Logan's, which were very much _not_ looking at Alec or the still bulging crotch Alec practically waved inches from his face.

"That's good," Logan said, his voice too calm, too much like he didn't see anything that Alec knew he did. Logan maneuvered out from the corner he was wedged into, his chair nudging Alec out of the way as he went into the dining room. "Long as you stay out of the cage fights and security cameras, you should be able to—"

"Hey."

The wheelchair stilled by the dining table. Logan took a deep breath.

"I meant what I said, Dean. I can't go back." He rubbed his thighs up and down. 

Alec stared at Logan's slumped shoulders, his stomach sinking. "Thought you were talking about me backing you into a wall."

Logan gave a short laugh. "Exactly."

His chest did a hard thump against his ribs. Alec absently rubbed a spot over his heart. "Sorry."

Logan cleared his throat. "About your brother—"

"Sure," Alec interrupted. Logan's shoulders stiffened with surprise. "If there's something to learn, might as well. Could make good tactical advantage."

"Right." 

"So uh... I'll catch you later?" Alec grimaced at his own bright tone. 

Alec hated how relieved Logan sounded. "Sure. Thanks for the food."

"It still needs a name though."

Logan's chuckle came out forced. "I'll get on it." 

Alec wished Logan would turn around at least. "Listen..."

"It's okay, Dean." Logan's shoulders dropped.

But it wasn't okay and Alec was starting to wish he could lose the last hour. "I..."

"I'll see you later. Okay?"

The plea was impossible to ignore. Alec swallowed and managed a "Sure," that sounded reasonably normal. He went back toward the window, glancing back periodically at Logan by the dining table. When Logan wouldn't turn around, Alec climbed out the window, shutting it firmly behind him and headed back up the roof.

As snow slowly gathered on the metal shed, Alec sat on the roof, his back to the ledge, his nose pressed to the folds of wool around his neck.

 

\---

 

He should say something.

Alec crouched next to the side of the couch, watching, his exhales lost in the gray scarf wound around his neck like a boa constrictor. He observed Logan, back up on the padded platform, finishing up his third set, his breathing loud and ragged. 

The window was shut, given the early hour, but as usual, no feat to disarm. Alec had crept in, expecting to catch Logan napping, fixated on his laptop again, or whatever bored former journalists did in their spare time. Finding Logan exercising again wasn't a real surprise; finding himself rooted to the spot was.

Logan's pant legs were rolled up to the knees. The gray jersey top he wore was once again black with sweat, rumpled, and a half size too big. It was making interesting suggestions from the way it folded, clung and draped everywhere. Alec suspected this might not have been the case once; that shirt, like most of Logan's clothing, once fit like they belonged to him, not hand-me-downs from an older sibling.

He didn't know why that bothered him so much. 

Alec scowled when Logan finished his second set, paused long enough to wipe his face, before aggressively continuing to his third. Alec chewed his lower lip, his eyes tracking tendons contracting in response. By the time Logan finished, his quads jerked spasmodically with the exertion. Logan pulled down his glasses and wearily scrubbed his face dry with a nearby towel. Panting, Logan sat there, head hung low, his legs dangling over the platform, still quivering on their own.

After a sigh, Logan lifted his head.

"You might as well come out," Logan called out wearily.

Alec winced. He straightened out from his position. He fidgeted from foot to foot before making his way over. "Hey." 

Logan pushed his spectacles up before he smiled wearily. "Hey."

Alec unwrapped the scarf from his neck, folding it carefully to fit into his oversized coat pocket. "Thought I drop by...from the roof...you know..." He nodded behind him. "How'd you know I was there?"

"Last I checked, my place doesn't echo." Logan rolled his shoulders back with a grunt. "For a second there, I thought something was wrong with my breathing when I heard two."

Oops. Alec clamped his mouth shut. _Great going, 494._ He was usually better with being covert.

Logan's eyes were slits of muddy green as he considered Alec. "Been a few days."

Alec lifted one shoulder. "Yeah." He rocked back and forth on his heels. "Been pretty busy. Stealing from the rich, spending it until I'm poor." 

The considering look Logan gave him was unnerving. After a beat, it slid away and it was like the room had exhaled. "Building management was distributing memos to the tenants." Logan gestured towards the computer area. 

Alec grinned hesitantly at Logan. "Oh?"

Logan shrugged, but his mouth was curved in a private smile that widened Alec's.

Alec couldn't help but prod. " _So_...how upset was Walker about the diamonds?"

There was an impolite snort that ruffled a bang on Logan's forehead. "Considering they didn't belong to him in the first place? I don't know. They didn't mention exactly what was taken." Logan absently massaged his left shoulder, grimacing. "Thought you were saving them for a rainy day?"

Waving towards his own neck, Alec made a face. "Gonna cost extra to find someone to replace Old Man Wei _and_ keep his mouth shut once he sees the barcode."

Logan winced. "There must be a better way."

Alec grunted. "When you find one, let me know." He leaned back against the shelves that lined the little exercise area. He flicked a look at the bottles on the top shelf. Whoa. _Massage_ oil? He adjusted his jeans. There was a jolt in his chest when he wondered who could be giving Logan Cale massages. He scowled at the bottles. When he turned back to Logan, he caught himself under a strange look.

"What?" 

"Nothing." Logan looked like he was bracing himself to shimmy over to his waiting chair. He checked Alec, relaxing when he realized Alec was staying put.

Not that Alec _wanted_ to stay put. Watching Logan shift weight from hip to hip, pelvis rolling as he squirmed to the edge, was doing things in his jeans that last time had him diving into a three day crime spree. Of course, he had help; Eyes Only was pretty useful in helping Alec decide which rich scumbag was going down. The guy was reading off one corrupt guy after another; enough that Alec heard overheard a couple of them grumbling about keeping his pretty eyes in a jar. Ouch. Eyes Only better stop pissing off people. Alec would miss him if he bought it: he gave out the best leads.

The soft grunt said it was safe to look over again. The following thinner hiss of pain, though, made Alec head over with one hand on Logan's shoulder.

"What is it?" One look at Logan's clenched teeth, the beaded sweat on his brow and his hand digging into his upper thigh told Alec enough. 

"Stretch out on the couch," Alec told him, not waiting for Logan to argue as he went to the kitchen. 

Alec grabbed a jar of peanut butter—not that there was much of a choice in the fridge—and filled a glass from the faucet and packed a towel with ice. By the time he was done, Logan was already on the couch, legs taking up the entire length of the furniture, chest heaving like he had held his breath underwater too long. He watched Alec come around, raising an eyebrow when Alec handed him the jar with a spoon stuck in it.

"Only protein I could find," Alec told Logan. He waited for Logan to finish the water before he went back to refill the glass once more. He sat down on the carpet by Logan's feet. "Your fridge is pathetic. Celery and peanut butter? Seriously?"

"Forgot to go to the market again," Logan muttered. 

"When was the last time you went? Before the Pulse?" Alec could feel Logan's glower on his head. "Eat up. It helps."

"Peanut butter?" Logan griped. "I'm not four."

"No, even four year olds would know to eat a piece of dead cow now and then." 

Logan, grumbling, scooped a modest spoonful. He pressed the heel of a hand into his upper thigh. 

"Here." Alec tossed the makeshift icepack squarely on his lap. Logan jerked at the cold but sighed later once he moved it to where it was needed.

Alec stared out the windows as he listened to Logan inhale and exhale, the measured breaths oddly reassuring to his ears. He looked out across from them, at the other buildings just as high, empty of their occupants during the day. He wondered if they were working, maybe sitting around with their kids, doing what normal parents do with their children.

Logan murmured, words muffled by the creamy thick paste he stuck in his mouth. Alec grinned at the smacking sound. He watched Logan's reflection off the window as he dug into the jar again. After two more spoonfuls, Alec brandished his spoon over his shoulder.

"Gimme," Alec demanded, taking the jar passed to him and stabbing his spoon into its depths. He hummed appreciatively, licking his spoon as he handed it back to Logan.

"So what's with..." Alex gestured behind him with his spoon.

"With what?"

"I'm pretty sure working yourself up to a heart attack isn’t one of the recommended exercise programs." When Logan didn't answer, Alec glanced over. Logan's eyes were hooded. 

He took his time scraping the peanut butter off its sides. Alec turned back, his tongue flickering out over his lips to catch any sticky remains of peanut butter he might have missed. He cleared his throat to push on.

"Think I figured out who your twin was," Logan said abruptly. 

His stomach clenched. "That so?" Alec said casually. The guy across from them was arguing into his phone. Alec wondered if he zoomed in, would he be able to read that side of the conversation. 

"I think he was one of the original escapees from 09."

"Nice of him to think of me when he left," Alec muttered as he fumbled to get back the peanut butter. He jabbed his spoon into the peanut butter, hitting bottom. 

"It wasn't planned."

Alec looked up.

"They broke out during a medical emergency. The entire facility went on lockdown." Logan adjusted the icepack over his thigh. "I doubt they would have escaped recapture if the Pulse hadn't happened two months later."

"Lucky break," Alec grunted. They took advantage of an outside attack and pressed tactical advantage.

"They were just kids then."

Alec rolled his eyes. "Don't feel sorry for them," he warned. "By that age, I was..." He clamped his mouth shut. "Thirsty," he said finally. He sprung up to his feet and headed for the kitchen. He was tempted to grab that fancy bottle from before. But a glance at Logan, trying to bite back his wince as his fingers dug into muscle, Alec went for water instead. He wordlessly thrust another glass at Logan when he returned.

"Dean..."

"Forget it. I changed my mind. I don't want to know," Alec said brusquely. His stomach unraveled when Logan thankfully fell silent. He sat on the carpet, acutely aware of Logan stretched out behind him. He guzzled down water, listened to Logan sip his, listened to the wind do its best to rattle its way inside.

"When they left," Alec began. His mouth pressed thin. Logan didn't say anything and Alec found himself profoundly grateful for that. 

"All of us were put through retraining. A little billion dollar attitude adjustment. Some of us..." Alec tipped the glass back and drained it dry. The glass made a hollow _thump_ when he slapped it down hard on the carpet.

"Some of us were culled off to undergo PSY-OPS." Alec resisted the urge to rub the side of his face where adhesive once stubbornly clung, burning his skin as it kept his eyes open, restraints kept his head up to watch the screen flicker faster and faster. There was no audio but there was still a sound; the buzzing of metal screaming in the back of his head.

"Manticore must have been afraid of it happening again." Ice clinked wetly against each other when Logan repositioned the ice pack.

Alec snorted. Manticore? Afraid? Right.

"I had wondered 'why the hell me'," Alec muttered. He ran a finger around the edge of the drinking glass. It whined briefly then abruptly silenced. "Guess they were afraid I would be like dear ole' bro and go AWOL." He picked up the glass, pressed hard on it and watched his thumbprint briefly mar the surface before fading. He wondered if his twin had the same fingerprint? How related were they? How close together were they cut from the same genetic cloth? 

Alec stared where his two thumb prints were on the glass, one vanishing faster than the other.

"Do you think..." Alec shook his head, his throat working.

"I don't think you'll become a killer." 

_Too late_ , Alec thought bleakly. He drew up his knees to balance the glass on top of them. It toppled over, but not before catching the sunlight. For a brief moment, it looked pretty.

"Did your X-5 buddy have a twin too?" Alec laid his head back. He could feel Logan's ankle against the back of his head.

"Don't know." Logan's shrug was audible. "I wouldn't be surprised if there was one though, for contingencies. Manticore is a cautious little secret government operation," he added wryly.

Alec turned his head and arched an eyebrow up at Logan. "So there's a chance there could be dozens of me running around here?"

"I hope not," Logan said earnestly. "One of you is all I can handle."

_Interesting_. Alec sat up, pivoting around on his knees to face the couch. He curled a hand on a warm knee. Logan forgot to unroll his pants legs.

"So," Alec leered. "You want to _handle_ me?"

The pink that colored the profile of Logan's cheekbones begged to be licked. Alec applauded himself on his restraint holding off climbing into Logan's lap to do just that.

A melting ice cube ducked into his gaping t-shirt neckline and slithered icy and wet down to his abs.

"Shit, that's cold!" Alec sprang up to his feet. He wiggled out of his jacket, about to squirm out of his t-shirt when he paused. Still half in, half out of his top, Alec favored Logan with a lazy smirk.

"If you wanted me to take off my clothes, all you gotta do is ask." Alec's eyebrows almost disappeared into his hairline. He sat down on the edge of the couch. "Hell, don't even ask. Just help yourself. I'm into kinky."

"Dean..." Logan sighed, his head drooping as he shook it. "Enough, really."

Alec's smile faded. He looked down. His hand was on Logan's knee. He'd been stroking the side of the kneecap, the dip where quads and calves meet.

"See?" Logan's voice was thick with a darker emotion Alec understood all too well. "I can barely feel that."

Alec couldn't bring himself to pull away. 

"But you _did_ feel it," Alec murmured. He swallowed, his thumb still exploring the slope of Logan's knee. It felt vulnerable, exposed in the world. He rested his hand over its entirety; he hoped the warmth of his hand would sink into Logan's knee.

Logan's hand pushed Alec's off. "That's not enough." The icepack, limp and spent was slapped in his place.

Alec didn't look up. He stared at his hand, now on the sharp relief of a fragile tibia bone underneath. 

"I can make it good," Alec whispered, face hot, his throat tight. "It'll be good for you. I'll make sure of it." He found his thumb brushing up on the faint yet crisp leg hairs that highlighted a calf muscle still knotted painful and hot despite Logan's rest. Alec hoped Logan couldn't feel that.

Logan's sigh burned his ears.

"It won't be good for you."

Huh? Startled, Alec glanced up and caught Logan's face, miserable as he stared at Alec's hand on his leg. Logan met his gaze and shook his head. He nodded towards his own lap.

"I don't know if I can...there's a chance I can't..."

The more Logan's ears burned brighter, the wider Alec's eyes got. He dropped them before Logan could get a good look. "So you don't know for sure..." 

Logan wordlessly shook his head. 

Alec smoothed his palm up Logan's leg, lingering over the pale knee before skimming up his firm thigh, palming the broad quad muscle bunching under his touch, pants slightly cool and damp from the icepack. He pressed down, ironing out the quivers he could feel—from exertion or hopefully from something else—as his hand inched closer to the bulge under soft jersey.

"Dean. Stop." _Please_ was left unfinished in the crack of Logan's voice.

Alec stopped. He brushed the back of his hand on Logan's thigh.

"Okay," he murmured to the tremors he could feel in the leg. "All right." 

"We don't have to have this," Logan said hoarsely. He shifted, hitching himself higher on the couch. "Dean, we're fine without this."

Alec disagreed but Logan sounded so desperate to be right, he found himself nodding. "Sure," he said brightly as he pulled his hands away. He didn't stop to wonder why his hands ached when he did that, like they were curled tight over something for too long. "I think you're missing out though. I do this thing with a neck tie and a feather..." 

Logan choked. "Are you trying to convince me into it or _out_ of it?"

"Well...preferably _both_ , if you know what I mean." The leer pulled at both sides of his face, but Logan appeared relieved to see it.

There was still a tinge of pink on Logan's face like someone had backhanded him but the darkness that dull the sharp glimmer in his eyes receded. "Where's that off switch?" he joked weakly.

Alec waggled his eyebrows. "Heather, there ain't none. I am _always_ turned on." It hurt to laugh, but he made himself chuckle along with Logan.

Logan sagged against his couch. He studied Alec with such intensity that Alec fought the instinctive urge to flinch.

"We're okay?" 

"Yeah." Alec staggered up to his feet. He'd been sitting too long; his legs tingled and struggled briefly to find solid footing. "I'm always okay. Hell, I'm usually better than okay." He eyed the glasses on the carpet. "Want me to get you more water before I blaze?" Alec nodded towards the window. "Places to go, pieces to steal."

"No, I'm good."

_No_ , Alec thought with a lump in his throat, _you're really fucking not_. He slapped Logan on the shoulder. "And will you get that fridge filled? Each time I look in it, I lose a kilo." 

"Sure," Logan grumbled lightly. "I'll refill it with more peanut butter tomorrow."

Alec scoffed, about to point out that wouldn't help when he hesitated.

"Hey..." Alec swallowed. "Do you know what was his..." He almost said _designation_. "Did he have a name?"

Logan appeared startled. "I...I didn't hear any mention but...I knew the names of the original twelve."

"Oh." Alec wasn't sure how he felt about that.

"Do you want me to find out?" Logan thumbed behind him towards the dining area and the folders that took up the entire table now. "It'll probably take me a day."

Alec took his time winding the scarf around him, tucking it into his collars as he zipped up his jacket all the way to his throat. He made sure the wheelchair was positioned closer. 

"Sure. If it's no trouble." Alec shrugged. He darkened when he saw Logan reaching for his tiny laptop on the end table next to the couch. Damn thing could be worth something. He made a note of pricing it, adding it to his mental "Things to Steal" list. It was up there, knocking his lesbian orgy vases from first place.

"It's no trouble."

Alec mumbled his thanks and edged to the window, rehooked his rigging. When he lifted his eyes, he found Logan studying him. Caught, Logan's eyes ducked towards the laptop. That demented _click click click_ started up. 

"See you tomorrow?" Alec said, a bit too loudly. Logan jerked, momentarily disoriented as he peeled away from the screen.

"Huh? Sure." 

Alec set his jaw. That damn typing took over again. He looked over his shoulder. Logan looked small on the couch. Logan looked like he might sink into the cushions never to be seen or heard of again and suddenly, Alec thought that wasn't right.

Logan peered up at him, his fingers suspended over the keyboard. "What?"

Abruptly, Alec pushed off from the window. His rigging dropped to the carpet as he crossed back to the couch. 

Logan gazed up at him, puzzled. His widening eyes stayed glued to Alec's. He looked like a caught mouse, frozen in place when Alec dropped down next to him, captured his face with both hands and leaned in.

The first taste of Logan's mouth was a shock; a lingering breath of coffee exhaled into Alec's mouth when he pressed in. His head tilted back as Alec pressed him into the couch. His lips felt stiff, unyielding when Alec sealed his open mouth over his.

Alec teased the lips wider, his tongue darting in to ask, no, demand entrance. He carded his fingers through thick hair and tugged at the caught strands briefly, gently insisting.

With a faint groan, Logan's mouth softened against his. His hands tentatively felt Alec's sides before settling on his hips. He made a tiny sound, maybe a protest, maybe, but it died quickly with a few nips on his lower lip. 

Careful not to crush him, Alec took his time, licking and nibbling his way inside the wet cavern of Logan's hot mouth. He felt Logan's hands briefly tightening on his hips as he began to shake; whatever screwed up thought banging around Logan's brain finally intruded.

Reluctantly, Alec pulled back, but not before licking that lower lip one last time. Sure enough, like he had first thought; Logan's eyes turned into a smoky green, his mouth wet and pink. 

Alec's head reeled. This must be what it's like to be drunk, to have vertigo, everything that Manticore spliced out of him. This, the heady feeling under his feet, the seesaw equilibrium, was alien to him. But not the almost uncomfortable heat between his legs, stretching taut the front of his jeans.

Logan's frightened expression, though, was like a bucket of cold water.

"You're fine. You're...you're safe with me," murmured Alec as he stroked Logan's jaw. The words tasted strange on his tongue.

The wide eyes shuttered. Logan ran his tongue over his lips. He swallowed. "Dean..."

"Actually," Alec could feel a flush crawling up his face. "My name...my name isn't Dean." He crooked a smile at the opened mouth expression. "It's Alec." He shrugged one shoulder, grinned as best he could even though his stomach warned him he was about to lose his lunch.

Before Logan could say anything at all, Alec slipped out the window, shut it behind him and got the hell out of there.

  


To be continued in Book 2 : Dreaming

**04-30-2014 Update:** _Book 2 in **July** 2014\. I am now **75%** done. The book is getting much longer than expected, to my chagrin. Have not stopped writing, but **still** in need of a beta :( because no, I refuse to subject my readers with my bad grammar._

_For E. who inspired this story in the first place. Love you!_  


**Author's Note:**

> Too many people to thank but without them, this wouldn't have been done! First, denyce for her hard work putting this Big Bang together. Thank you for your warm welcome and advice guiding me through my first Big Bang ever!
> 
> To Eliza, ladyarcherfan3 and Shygryl for the edits. This was a huge monster to tackle (and it's only book 1!) and they took to task without flinching. They read, alpha betaed, final-betaed and polished this gem you behold. I've learned so much from them three!Note: I'm forever fixing so any errors are completely my fault! 
> 
> And to LJ's treasure: Evian Fork for the art. The fan art nailed the emotion so perfectly. I'm humbled to have these masterpieces for this project.
> 
> See? It wasn't just me! :)  
> \-----------------------------  
> Thank you all for reading the first in this trilogy. Feedback, as always, would be much welcomed and appreciated!


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